LEARNING HOW TO LEARN

A COURSERA MOOC
DR. BARBARA OAKLEY
&
DR. TERRENCE SEJNOWSKI

P a g e |1

Table of Contents
Week 1

Week 2

What is Learning?

pp. 4-18

Introduction to the Focused and Diffuse Modes

p. 4

Introduction to the Course Structure

p. 6

Using the focused and diffuse Modes

p. 7

What is Learning?

p. 8

A Procrastination Preview

p. 10

Practice makes permanent

p. 11

Introduction to Memory

p. 13

The importance of sleep in learning

p. 15

Summary Video for Module 1

p. 16

Excitement about whats next!

p. 18

Chunking

pp. 19-35

Introduction to Chunking

p. 19

What is a Chunk?

p. 20

How to Form a Chunk Part 1

p. 22

How to Form a Chunk Part 2

p. 24

Illusions of Competence

p. 26

What Motivates You?

p. 28

The Value of a Library of Chunks

p. 30

Overlearning, Choking, Einstellung, and Interleaving

p. 32

Summary Week 2

p. 35

P a g e |2

Table of Contents (contd)

Week 3

Week 4

Procrastination and Memory

pp. 37-53

Introduction to Procrastination and Memory

p. 37

Tackling Procrastination

p. 38

Zombies Everywhere

p. 40

Surfs Up: Process versus Product

p. 41

Harnessing Your Zombies to Help You

p. 42

Juggling Life and Learning

p. 44

Summing Up Procrastination

p. 46

Diving Deeper into Memory

p. 47

What is Long Term Memory?

p. 49

Creating Meaningful Groups and the Memory Palace Technique

p. 51

Summing Up Memory

p. 53

Renaissance Learning and Unlocking Your Potential

pp. 54-72

How to Become a Better Learner

p. 54

Introduction to Renaissance Learning and Unlocking Your Potential p. 56

Create a Lively Visual Metaphor or Analogy

p. 57

No Need for Genius Envy

p. 58

Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life

p. 60

The Value of Teamwork

p. 62

A Test Checklist

p. 64

Hard Start Jump to Easy

p. 66

Final Helpful Hints for Tests

p. 68

Summary

p. 70

Wrap Up to the course by Terrence Sejnowski & Barbara Oakley

p. 72

P a g e |4

Introduction to the Focused and Diffuse Modes

What do you do when you just can't figure something out? For zombies, it's pretty simple. They can
just keep bashing their brains against the wall. But living brains are a lot more complex. It turns out,
though, that if you understand just a little bit of some of the basics about how your brain works, you
can learn more easily and be less frustrated.
Researchers have found that we have two fundamentally different modes of thinking. Here, I'll call
them the Focused and the Diffuse modes. We're familiar with focusing. It's when you concentrate
intently on something you're trying to learn or to understand. But we're not so familiar with diffuse
thinking. Turns out that this more relaxed thinking style is related to a set of neural resting states.
We're going to use an analogy of the game of pinball to help us understand these two thinking
modes. Incidentally, both metaphor and analogy are really helpful when you're trying to learn
something new.
If you remember, a pinball game works by, you pull back on the plunger, release it, and a ball goes
boinking out, bouncing around on the rubber bumpers, and that's how you get points. So, here's
your brain, with the ears right here, and the eyes looking upwards. And we can lay that pinball
machine right down inside it. So, there you go. There's the analogy for the focused mode. The blue
bumper bumpers here are placed very close to one another. See this orange pattern here towards
the top? It represents a familiar thought pattern. Maybe involving something simple like adding
some numbers, or more advanced ideas like literary criticism or calculating electromagnetic flows.
You think a thought, boom, it takes off, moves smoothly along. And then, as it's bouncing around on
the bumpers, you're able to figure out the problem you're trying to solve, or the concept you're
trying to understand that's related to something you're rather familiar with. So look at how that
thought moves smoothly around on the fuzzy underlying orange neural pathway. In some sense it's
as if it's traveling along a familiar, nicely paved road.
But what if the problem you're working on needs new ideas or approaches? Concepts you haven't
thought of before. That's symbolized here by this neural pattern towards the bottom of the pinball
machine area. But if you haven't thought that thought before, you don't even know how that
pattern feels or where it is. So how are you going to develop that new thought in the first place? Not
only do you not know where the pattern is or what the pattern looks like, but see all the rubber
bumpers that are blocking your access whatever direction you do decide to move in? To get to this
new thought pattern, you need a different way of thinking. And that's represented here, by the
diffuse mode.
Look at how widely spaced the rubber bumpers are. Thought takes off, look at how it moves widely,
bounces around. It could travel a long way before being interrupted by hitting a bumper. In this
diffuse mode of thinking, you can look at things broadly from a very different, big picture
perspective. You can make new neural connections traveling along new pathways. You can't focus
in as tightly as you often need to, to finalize any kind of problem solving. Or understand the finest
aspects of a concept. But you can at least get to the initial place you need to be in to home in on a
solution.

P a g e |5

Now as far as neuroscientists know right now, you're either in the focused mode or the diffuse mode
of thinking. It seems you can't be in both thinking modes at the same time. It's kind of like a coin.
We can see either one side, or the other side of the coin. But not both sides at the same time. Being
in one mode seems to limit your access to the other mode's way of thinking. In our next video we're
going to see how some extraordinary people access their diffuse ways of thinking to do great things.
Thanks for learning about learning. I'm Barbara Oakley. [BLANK_AUDIO]

P a g e |6

Terrence Sejnowski & Barbara Oakley - Introduction to the Course Structure

Dr. Sejnowski: Welcome to Learning How to Learn. Your brain has amazing abilities, but it didn't
come with an instruction manual. Perhaps the greatest gif that our brains give us is the ability to
learn new things every day. On my way here, I thought about the journey that will take us to the last
day of the course and how much we will learn along the way. Our goal is to give you a better
understanding of how we learn, so that your brain becomes a better learner. These insights are
based on solid research from neuroscience, from cognitive psychology, and also from dozens of
leading instructors and practitioners in difficult-to-learn subjects. Whether you're a novice or an
expert, you will find great new ways to improve your skills and techniques for learning, especially
related to math and science.
Dr. Oakley: This course is meant to help you reframe how you think about learning, to help reduce
your frustration and increase your understanding. We approach things a little differently. You're not
expected to have an in-depth background in any particular subject. Instead, you're expected to take
these ideas and apply them to whatever subject you're trying to learn or improve in, to help you learn
more deeply, effectively, and with less frustration. You'll hear experts from a variety of different
disciplines talking about their best tips for learning more effectively. You can benefit from these
ideas whether you are struggling in high school or soaring through math and science at graduate
levels at a university.
Dr. Sejnowski: I'm a co-director of a science and learning center that is sponsored by the National
Science Foundation, based here in La Jolla. In recent years, we've made great strides from research,
in discovering how to learn most effectively. Finding a way to simply and effectively share these
ideas with you, has been a big undertaking, but we feel it's well worth doing. You'll see that many of
these ideas, although simple, are incredibly powerful. And along the way, we'll also learn a lot in the
process of teaching you.
Dr. Oakley: You'll see how you can fool yourself about whether you actually know the material.
You'll discover new ways to hold your focus and embed the material more deeply and powerfully in
your mind. And you'll learn to condense key ideas you're learning about, so you can grasp them
more easily, master the simple, practical approaches outlined here, including simple tips to help
prevent procrastination. And you'll be able to learn more effectively and with less frustration. This
course is meant to enrich both your learning and your life. You'll able to get what you want from this
material. So, welcome to the course, and happy learning!

P a g e |7

Using the Focused & Diffuse Modes or, a little Dali will do
[BLANK_AUDIO]
So let's take a look at some famous people from history who used their different thinking modes to
help them with their problem solving. If you look at that guy right there, he was Salvador Dali, a very
well-known surrealist painter of the 20th century. He was the very definition of a wild and crazy guy.
You can see him here with his pet ocelot, Babou.
Dali used to have an interesting technique to help him come up with his fantastically creative
surrealist paintings. He'd relax in a chair and let his mind go free, often still vaguely thinking about
what he had been previously focusing on. He'd have a key in his hand, dangling it just above the
floor. And as he would slip into his dreams, falling asleep, the key would fall from his hand [SOUND]
and the clatter would wake him up, just in time so he could gather up those diffuse mode
connections and ideas in his mind. And off he'd go back into the focused mode bringing with him the
new connections he'd made while in the diffuse mode. Now you might think, well, you know, that's
okay for an artist, but what is it have to do with more scientific or mathematical kinds of thinking?
Well, if you look down here, this guy was Thomas Edison, one of the most brilliant inventors ever.
According to legend, what Edison used to do was he'd sit and relax in his chair, holding ball bearings
in his hand. He'd relax away letting his mind run free, although it would often noodle back in a much
more relaxed way to what he'd been focusing on previously. When Edison would fall asleep, the ball
bearings would drop [NOISE] and clatter to the ground just as with Dali, and it would wake Edison up
and off he'd go with his ideas from the diffuse mode, ready to take them into the focused mode and
build on them.
So the bottom line is, when you're learning something new, especially something that's a little more
difficult, your mind needs to be able to go back and forth between the two different learning modes.
That's what helps you learn effectively. You might think of it as a bit analogous to building your
strength by lifting weights. You would never plan to compete in a weight lifting competition by
waiting until the very day before a meet and then spending that entire day working out like a fiend. I
mean, it just doesn't happen that way. To gain muscular structure, you need to do a little work every
day, gradually allowing your muscles to grow. Similarly, to build neuro-structure, you need to do a
little work every day, gradually allowing yourself to grow a neuro-scaffold to hang your thinking on, a
little bit every day and that's the trick.
In summary then:
We learned that analogies provide powerful techniques for learning.
We learned about how the brain's two different thinking modes, focused and diffuse, each
helps us learn, but in very different ways.
And finally, we learned that learning something difficult can take time. Your brain needs to
alternate its ways of learning as it grapples with and assimilates the new material.
Thanks for learning about learning. I'm Barbara Oakley.

P a g e |8

What is Learning?
Welcome to learning how to learn. My name is Terry Sejnowski. Let me introduce you to your brain!
First, some brain surgery. We take off the skull and take out the brain. This brain weighs three
pounds, but it consumes ten times more energy by weight than the rest of the body, a very
expensive organ. It is the most complex device in the known universe. All of your thoughts, your
hopes, your fears are in the neurons in this brain. We prize our abilities to do chess and math, but it
takes years of practice to acquire these skills. And digital computers are much better at it than we
are. It came as a surprise to discover that what we do so well and take for granted, like seeing,
hearing, reaching, running, are all much more complex problems than we thought and way beyond
the capability of the world's fastest digital computers. What this illustrates is that we are not
consciously aware of how our brains work.
Brains evolved to help us navigate complex environments, and most of the heavy lifting is done
below our level of consciousness. And we don't need to know how it's done in order to survive.
Psychologists who study the unconscious mind have found that influences include thought
processes, memory, emotions and motivation. We are only aware of a very small fraction of all of
the activity in the brain, so we need to rely on brain imaging techniques to guide us.
Here is the activity map of someone's brain who was asked to lie still, at rest, in a brain imaging
scanner. On the left is the side view of the brain and on the right is the view from the midline. The
colors indicate brain areas whose activities were highly correlated, as shown by the time courses
below, color-coded to the brain areas. The blue areas are highly active when the subject interacts
with the world, but turn off in a resting state. The red-orange areas are most active in the resting
state and are called the default mode network. Other brain areas are also more active when you are
resting, and these areas can be further divided into groups of areas that have common patterns of
activity. This is a new and intense area of research, and it will take time to sort out all the resting
states and their functions.
There are a million billion synapses in your brain where memories are stored. The old view of the
brain is that once it matures, the strengths of synapses can be adjusted by learning, but the pattern
of connectivity does not change much unless there is brain damage. But now we know that brain
connectivity is dynamic and remains so even after it matures. With new optical techniques for
imaging single connections between neurons called synapses, we can see constant turnover, with
new synapses being formed and others disappearing. This raises a puzzle. In the face of so much
turnover, how do memories stay stable over so many years?
This is a picture of one dendritic branch on a neuron which receives inputs from other neurons. The
synapses are on the spiny knobs coming off the dendrite. On the top, the dendrite was imaged
before learning. The same dendrite is shown below after learning and after sleep. Multiple synapses
that are newly formed together on the same branch are indicated by the white arrowheads. You are
looking down into the brain of a live animal. This is really a fantastic new technique. Synapses are
less than a micron in diameter. In comparison, a human hair is around 20 microns in diameter. This
new technique allows us to see how learning changes the structure of the brain with a resolution that
is near the limit of light microscopy.

P a g e |9

This illustrates that, intriguingly, that you are not the same person you were after a night's sleep or
even a nap. It is if you went to bed with one brain and woke up with an upgrade. This is a better deal
than you can get from Microsoft. Shakespeare, the great English poet, already knew this. Here is
Macbeth lamenting his insomnia: Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care, the death of each
day's life, sore labor's bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's
feast. Here, Shakespeare is making an analogy between knitted clothes and sleep that knits up the
loose threads of experience and concerns during the day and weaves them into the tapestry of your
life story.
You will learn in this first week how to take advantage of your unconscious mind, and also sleep, to
make it easier to learn new things and solve problems. During the lectures you may ask yourself,
how does the brain do this? A good place to find out more about your brain is the website
brainfacts.org, brainfacts, one word, .org (http://www.brainfacts.org/). You will find a wealth of
interesting things about brains and behavior, and in particular about learning and memory.
I am Terry Sejnowski. Happy learning until we meet again.

P a g e | 10

A Procrastination Preview
Everybody has some issues with procrastination. Because if you're working on something, it means
you're not working, on a lot of other things. But some people have more issues with procrastination
than others. In this video, we're going to give you a little insight into procrastination. Why it arises,
and a powerful little tool to help you address it.
When you look at something that you really rather not do, it seems that you activate the areas of
your brain associated with pain. Your brain, naturally enough, looks for a way to stop that negative
stimulation by switching your attention to something else. But here's the trick. Researchers
discovered that not long after people might start actually working out what they didn't like, that
neuro-discomfort disappeared. So it seems what happens when you procrastinate, is something like
this; first, you observe, and get a cue about something that causes a tiny bit of unease. You don't
like it, so to make the sensation go away you turn your attention from whatever caused that unease.
You turn toward something more pleasant. The result, you feel happier, temporarily.
We're going to talk more about procrastination later on. But in the mean, time I'm going to let you in
on a handy little mental tool. This tool is called, the Pomodoro. It was invented by Francesco Cirillo,
in the early 1980's. Pomodoro is Italian for tomato. The timer you use often looks like a tomato and
really, a timer is all there is to this elegant little technique. All you need to do, is set a timer to 25
minutes, turn off all interruptions, and then focus. That's it! Most anybody can focus for 25 minutes.
The only last important thing is to give yourself a little reward when you're done. A few minutes of
web surfing, a cup of coffee, or a bite of chocolate, even just stretching or chatting mindlessly,
allowing your brain to enjoyably change its focus for a while. You'll find that using the Pomodoro
technique is very effective. It's a little like doing an intense 25 minute workout at a mental gym.
Followed by some mental relaxation. Give it a try.
Next, we're going to see how one very shy ten year old, changed her brain.

P a g e | 11

Practice Makes Permanent

[BLANK_AUDIO]
Yep, that's me when I was 10. I loved animals, handicrafts, and dreaming. Back then, I was the
belligerent queen of anti-math. I neglected, ignored, flunked, and downright hated math and
science all through grade school, middle school, and high school. It's strange to realize I'm now a
professor of Engineering. I enlisted in the army right out of high school to study language at the
Defense Language Institute. That's me at 18, looking very nervous and very focused while throwing
a hand grenade.
I only started to study math and science when I was 26 years old, after I got out of the military. At
first, it was really hard. There were all these quick thinkers in my classes who seemed to get
everything a lot easier and faster than me. Sometimes I'd take a break for a few months, I'd go out
and work as a Russian translator on Soviet trawlers. That's me up in the Bering Sea. And I'd come
back to school and try and learn some more. As I gained technical know-how, new doors started
opening up for me. I ended up working as a radio operator at the South Pole Station in Antarctica.
That's where I met my husband. I always say I had to go the end of the Earth to meet that man.
Here he is, after only 10 minutes outside at minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit with a 60-mile-an-hour
wind. The wind chill takes it off the charts.
Now, I wasn't natural in math and science. Not at all. The way I succeeded was to gradually begin to
figure out some tricks. But let's back up a step. In the greater scheme of all the different careers and
disciplines that people can pursue, why are those involving math and science, sometimes, a bit more
challenging? We think it may be related, at least in part, to the abstract nature of the ideas. I mean,
let's take a cow for example, out standing in a field. If you have the word cow, you can point right to
a cow to learn what that word means. Even the letters for the word cow, C-O-W, are roughly
analogous to sounds that they stand for. But for mathematical ideas, there's often no analogous
thing that you can point to. There are no plus signs standing out in a field. No multiplication,
division, or other kinds of things that can directly equate to mini mathematical or scientific terms.
These terms are more abstract, in other words. Well, you might say, yeah, but what about ones like
love, zest, or hope? Those are all abstract. Yes they are, but the thing is, these abstract terms are
often related to our emotions. We can feel our emotions, even if we can't see and point to concrete
examples, like we could with the cow. This means it's important to practice with ideas and concepts
your learning in math and science, just like anything else youre learning to help enhance and
strengthen the neural connection youre making during the learning process.
You can see on your left here the symbolic representation of a thought pattern. Neurons become
linked together through repeated use. The more abstract something is, the more important it is to
practice in order to bring those ideas into reality for you. Even if the ideas you're dealing with are
abstract, the neural thought patterns you are creating are real and concrete. At least they are if you
build and strengthen them through practice. Here's a way to picture what's going on. When you first
begin to understand something, for example, how to solve a problem, the neural pattern from is
there, but very weak. Kind of like the faint pattern at the top of our paintball machine analogy here.
When you solve the problem again fresh from the start, without looking at the solution, you, you
begin deepening that neuron pattern, kind of like the darker pattern you see here in the middle. And

P a g e | 12

when you have the problem down cold, so you can go over each step completely and concisely in
your mind without even looking at the solution, and you've even had practice on related problems,
why then, the pattern is like this dark firm pattern you can see towards the bottom of the pinball
frame. Practice makes permanent.
When you're learning, what you want to do is study something. Study it hard by focusing intently.
Then take a break or at least change your focus to something different for a while. During this time
of seeming relaxation, your brain's diffuse mode has a chance to work away in the background and
help you out with your conceptual understanding. Your, your neural mortar in some sense has a
chance to dry. If you don't do this, if instead you learn by cramming, your knowledge base will look
more like this, all in a jumble with everything confused, a poor foundation. If you have problems
with procrastination, that's when you want to use the Pomodoro, that brief timer. This helps you get
going, using brief periods each day of focused attention that will help you start building the neural
patterns you need to be more successful in learning more challenging materials. Next stop, we'll be
talking about chunking, the vital essence of how you grasp and master key ideas.
I'm Barbara Oakley. [BLANK_AUDIO]

P a g e | 13

Introduction to Memory
When I look back on my childhood or I remember some words from Spanish or from Russian,
, or I bring to mind one of Maxwell's equations, I'm drawing on portions of my brain
involved in long term memory. But what I'm trying to hold a few ideas in mind to connect them
together so I can understand a concept or solve a problem, I'm using my working memory.
Obviously, sometimes I'll bring something from my long term memory into my working memory, so I
can think about it. So the two types of memory are related. There are lots of different ways to slice
our understanding a memory, but for this course on learning, we're going to talk about only these
two major memory systems, working memory and long term memory.
Working memory is the part of memory that has to do with what you're immediately and consciously
processing in your mind. Your working memory is centered out of the prefrontal cortex, although as
we'll see later, there are also connections to other parts of your brain, so you can access long term
memories. Researchers used to think that our working memory could hold around seven items or
chunks, but now it's widely believed that the working memory is holds only about four chunks of
information. We tend to automatically group memory items in to chunks so it seems our working
memory is bigger than it actually is. Although your working memory is like a blackboard, it's not a
very good blackboard. You often need to keep repeating what you are trying to work with so it's
stays in your working memory. For example, you'll sometimes repeat a phone number to yourself
until you have a chance to write it down. Repetition is needed so that your metabolic vampires, that
is, natural dissipating processes, don't suck those memories away. You may find yourself shutting
yours eyes to keep any other items from intruding into the limited slots of your working memory as
you concentrate.
So we know that short term memory is something like an inefficient mental blackboard. The other
form of memory, long term memory, is like a storage warehouse. And just like a warehouse, it's
distributed over a big area. Different kinds of long term memories are stored in different regions of
the brain. Research has shown when you first try to put a short term memory in long term memory,
you need to revisit it at least a few times to increase the chances that you'll be able to find later when
you might need it. The long term memory storage warehouse is immense. It's got room for billions
of items. In fact, there can be so many items they can bury each other, so it can be difficult for you to
find the information you need unless you practice and repeat at least a few times.
Long term memory is important because it's where you store fundamental concepts and techniques
that are often involved in whatever you're learning about. When you encounter something new, you
often use your working memory to handle it. If you want to move that information into your long
term memory, it often takes time and practice. To help with this process, use a technique called
spaced repetition. This technique involves repeating what you're trying to retain, but what you want
to do is space this repetition out. Repeating a new vocabulary word or a problem solving technique,
for example, over a number of days. Extending your practice over several days does make a
difference.
Research has shown that if you try to glue things into your memory by repeating something 20 times
in one evening, for example, it won't stick nearly as well as if you practice it the same number of
times over several days. This is like building the brick wall we saw earlier. If you don't leave time for

P a g e | 14

the mortar to dry, that is, time for the synoptic connections to form and strengthen, you won't have
a very good structure. And talk about lasting structure, look at this part of the Acropolis here.
Thanks for learning about learning. I'm Barbara Oakley. [BLANK_AUDIO]

P a g e | 15

The Importance of Sleep in Learning

You might be surprised to learn that just plain being awake creates toxic products in your brain. How
does the brain get rid of these poisons? Turns out that when you sleep, your brain cells shrink. This
causes an increase in the space between your brain cells. It's like unblocking a stream. Fluid can flow
past these cells and wash the toxins out. So sleep, which can sometimes seem like such a waste of
time, is actually your brain's way of keeping itself clean and healthy.
So, let's get right to a critical idea. Taking a test without getting enough sleep means you're
operating with a brain that's got little metabolic toxins floating around in it. Poisons that make it so
you can't think very clearly. It's kind of like trying to drive a car that's got sugar in its gas tank.
Doesn't work too well. In fact, getting too little sleep doesn't just make you do worse on tests, too
little sleep, over too long of a time, can also be associated with all sorts of nasty
Conditions, including headaches, depression, heart disease, diabetes, and just plain dying earlier.
But sleep does more than just allow your brain to wash away toxins. It's actually important part of
the memory and learning process. It's seems that during sleep your brain tidies up ideas and
concepts your thinking about and learning. It erases the less important parts of memories and
simultaneously strengthens areas that you need or want to remember. During sleep your brain also
rehearses some of the tougher parts of whatever you're trying to learn, going over and over neural
patterns to deepen and strengthen them. Sleep has also been shown to make a remarkable
difference in your ability to figure out difficult problems and to understand what you're trying to
learn. It's as if the complete deactivation of the conscious you in the pre-frontal cortex at the
forefront of your brain helps other areas of your brain start talking more easily to one another,
allowing them to put together the neural solution to your learning task while you're sleeping.
Of course, you must also plant the seed for your diffuse mode by first doing focused mode work. If
you're going over what you're learning right before you take a nap or going to sleep for the evening
you have an increased chance of dreaming about it. If you go even further and set it in mind that you
want to dream about the material, it seems to improve your chances of dreaming about it still
further. Dreaming about what you're studying can substantially enhance your ability to understand.
It somehow consolidates your memories into easier to grasp chunks.
And now time for a little sleep

P a g e | 16

Summary Video for Module 1

Although living brains are pretty complex, this week we've used metaphor and analogy and zombies
to help simplify matters. In essence, people have two fundamentally different modes of thinking
that, for the purpose of this course, we've labeled focused and diffuse. We used a simple pinball
analogy to help us understand the differences between the modes.
The focused mode has tight spacing for the rubber bumpers which seems to, in some sense, help
keep your thoughts concentrated. The diffuse mode, on the other hand, has more widely spaced
bumpers that allow for more broad ranging ways of thinking. The focused mode is centered more in
the prefrontal cortex, and it often seems to involve thinking about things you're somewhat familiar
with. For example, if you're familiar with multiplication and you're trying to solve a multiplication
problem or you're trying to find a word that rhymes with another word. You're probably stepping
along the somewhat familiar pathways of the focused mode. But if you're trying to solve or figure
out something new, it often cries out for the more broad-ranging perspectives of the diffuse mode.
This mode, as it turns out, is representative of the brain's many neural resting states.
Creative thinkers throughout history, whatever their discipline, have found ways to access the
diffuse mode, often more directly and quickly. But we all access this mode quite naturally when we
do things like go for a walk or take a shower or even just drift off to sleep. When we find ourselves
stuck on a problem, or even if we're unsure of a situation in the course of living our daily life, it's often
a good idea, once you've focused directly on the situation, to let things settle back, and take a bit
more time. That way, more neural processing can take place, often below conscious awareness in
the diffuse mode.
The thing is, it often takes time for neural processing to take place, and time as well to build the new
neural structures that allow us to learn something new. This is why tackling procrastination is so very
important. The easiest way to tackle procrastination is to use the Pomodoro technique; that brief 25
minute stretch of focused concentration, followed by a bit of mental relaxation. It's through practice
and repetition that we can help enhance and strengthen the neural structures we're building as we're
learning something new. Practice and repetition is particularly important for more abstract topics.
Memory, of course, is an important aspect of learning. There are four slots in our working memory.
Things can fall out of those slots unless we keep repeating them to hold them in mind. In that sense,
working memory is like a not very good blackboard. Long term memory, on the other hand, is like a
storage warehouse. If you practiced and repeated something well enough to get it into long term
memory, you can usually call it up later if you need it, although you may need an occasional bit of
repetition to freshen the memory up. It's never a good idea to cram your learning by repeating
things many times all in one day. Because that's like trying to build muscle by lifting weights all in
one day. There's no time for solid structures to grow.
We've also learned of the importance of sleep in washing away the toxins that develop during our
day's activities. You want to avoid taking tests or doing anything difficult with little sleep the night
before, because it's like trying to think with poison on the brain. And just as importantly, exercise is
surprisingly valuable in helping improve both our memory and our ability to learn.

P a g e | 17

We've had a lot of fun while learning this week, I'll bet you'll find next week's material to be even
more exciting.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn.

P a g e | 18

Excitement About Whats Next! Mary Anne Nestor Gives Special Hints
Hi, I'm Mary Anne, one of the TA's for the Learning How to Learn Course. The first module is almost
over and I would like to take a minute to encourage you.
I can tell you from my own experience this course has changed how I study and learn. Before this
course I would study hard, but no matter how much I studied I couldn't retain what I learned.
Honestly, I thought there was something wrong with me. Then I took this course and I found out it
was the way I was learning, or thought I was learning, that was the problem. All these years of
schooling, including an undergraduate degree, and a masters degree and I never had one instructor
show me what the instructors in this course share with us.
Using the techniques I learned in this course, I now know how to retain the information I want to
learn. Participants in other courses sometimes drop the first week. But don't do that in this course.
You will lose out on an opportunity of a lifetime. Knowing how we can learn effectively is a life skill
everyone needs, no matter where we are in life. It's never too late. If you see me in the discussion
forum, say hello. I'd love to hear your thoughts and how we can help each other learn, how to learn.

P a g e | 19

Introduction to Chunking
[SOUND].
This week, we're going to be talking about chunks, compact packages of information that your mind
can easily access. We'll talk about how you can form chunks, how you can use them to improve your
understanding of, and creativity with the material, and how chunks can help you do better on tests.
We'll also talk about illusions of competence in learning. This was when you're using ineffective
study methods that fool your mind into thinking you're learning something when you're mostly just
wasting your time. We'll cover what those less effective study methods are and tell you what
methods research has shown will work better to help you in your studies. Finally we'll talk about
something called overlearning, which can solidly ingrain information in your mind, but also can be a
little like digging deeper ruts as you might spin your wheels ineffectively in learning. You can make
your study time more valuable by interleaving, providing intelligent variety in your studies.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn.

P a g e | 20

What is a Chunk?
[SOUND]
In this video, we're going to answer the question. What is a chunk?
When you first look at a brand new concept it sometimes doesn't make much sense, as shown by the
jumbled puzzle pieces here. Chunking is the mental leap that helps you unite bits of information
together through meaning. The new logical whole makes the chunk easier to remember, and also
makes it easier to fit the chunk into the larger picture of what you're learning. Just memorizing a fact
without understanding or context doesn't help you understand what's really going on or how the
concept fits together with other concepts you're learning. Notice there are no interlocking puzzle
edges on the puzzle piece to help you fit it to other pieces.
We talked earlier about working memory and how those four slots of working memory appear to
hang out in the part of your brain right behind your forehead known as the prefrontal cortex. When
you're focusing your attention on something it's almost as if you have an octopus. The octopus of
attention that slips its tentacles through those four slots of working memory when necessary to help
you make connections to information that you might have in various parts of your brain. Remember,
this is different from the random connections of the diffuse mode. Focusing your attention to
connect parts of the brain to tie together ideas is an important part of the focused mode of learning.
It is also often what helps get you started in creating a chunk. Interestingly when you're stressed
your attentional octopus begins to lose the ability to make some of those connections. This is why
your brain doesn't seem to work right when you're angry, stressed, or afraid.
Chunks are pieces of information, neuroscientifically speaking, through bound together through
meaning or use. You can take the letters P-O and P and bind them together into one conceptual
easy to remember chunk, the word pop. [SOUND]. It's like converting a, a cumbersome computer
file into a ZIP file. Underneath that single pop chunk is a symphony of neurons that have learned to
sing in tune with one another. The complex neural activity that ties together our simplifying abstract
chunks of thought. Whether those thoughts pertain to acronyms, ideas, or concepts are the basis of
much of the science, literature, and art.
Let's say you want to learn how to speak Spanish. If you're a child hanging around a Spanish
speaking household, learning Spanish is as natural as breathing. Your mother says, mama. And you
say, mama, right back to her. Your neurons fire and wire together in a shimmering mental loop
cementing the relationship in your mind between the sound mama and your mother's smiling face.
That scintillating neural loop is one memory trace, which is connected, of course, to many other
related memory traces. The best programs for learning language, such as those of the Defense
Language Institute where I learned Russian, incorporate structured practice that includes repetition
and rote focus mode learning of the language along with more diffuse-like free speech with native
speakers. The goal is to embed the basic words and patterns so you can speak as freely and
creatively in your new language as you do in your native language.
As it turns out one of the first steps towards gaining expertise in academic topics is to create
conceptual chunks, mental leaps that unite scattered bits of information through meaning. The

P a g e | 21

concept of neural chunks also applies to sports, music, dance, really just about anything that humans
can get good at. Basically, a chunk means a network of neurons that are used to firing together so
you can think a thought or perform an action smoothly and effectively. Focused practice and
repetition, the creation of strong memory traces, helps you to create chunks. The path to expertise
is built little by little, small chunks can become larger, and all of the expertise serves to underpin
more creative interpretations as you gradually become a master of the material. In other words, as
you'll see later, practice and repetition in building chunks aren't all you need to become a truly
creative master of the material you're learning. Chunking helps your brain run more efficiently.
Once you chunk an idea, a concept, or an action, you don't know need to remember all the little
underlying details. You've got the main idea, the chunk, and that's enough. It's like getting dressed
in the morning. You just think one simple thought like, I'll get dressed, but it's amazing when you
realize the complex swirl of underlying activities that take place with that one, simple chunk of
thought. Next, we'll talk about how you can form a chunk.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn. [BLANK_AUDIO]

P a g e | 22

How to form a Chunk Part 1

In this video, we're going to give you a little background about how to make a chunk.
If you're learning to play a difficult song on the guitar, the neural representation of the song in your
mind can be considered as a rather large chunk. You would first listen to the song. Maybe you'd
even watch someone else playing the song especially if you were just a beginner who was learning
things like, how to hold the guitar.
Getting an initial sense of the pattern you want to master for yourself is similar for most subjects or
skills. You often have to grasp little bits of songs that become neuro mini-chunks, which will later
join together into larger chunks. For example, over several days, you might learn how to smoothly
place the musical passages on a guitar, and when you've grasped those passages, you could join
them together with other passages that you've learned, gradually putting everything together so
you can play the song. In learning a sport, say basketball, soccer, golf. You grasp and master various
bits and pieces of the skills you need. You're creating little neural mini-chunks that you can then
gradually knit together into larger neural chunks. Later you can hit those larger chunks into still
larger and more complex chunks that you can draw up in an instant, in reaction to say to a slight,
shift and twist in a soccer ball that's coming your way.
The best chunks are the ones that are so well ingrained, that you don't even have to consciously
think about connecting the neural pattern together. That, actually, is the point of making complex
ideas, movements or reactions into a single chunk. You can see this in language learning. In the
beginning often just saying a single word with the proper nuance, tone and accent involves a lot of
practice. Stringing extemporaneous sentences together involves the ability to creatively mix
together various complex mini-chunks and chunks in the new language.
To see what I mean, try repeating the following tongue-twister in the Indian language of Kannada.
>> Hi, I am Shilpa Konkani. I am native speaker of Kannada which is one of the oldest language
spoken in India. Today, I'm going share with you a tongue-twister in Kannada. So let's get started.
Terikere yri male muru kari kurimari meyuthiddavu. >> Not easy, is it? Unless you are a native
speaker of Kannada, but the language was learned bit by bit.
Learning in math and science involves the same approach. When you're learning new math and
science material, you're often given sample problems with worked out solutions. This is because,
when you're first trying to understand how to work a problem, you have a heavy cognitive load. So it
helps to start out with a work through example. It's like first listening to a song before trying to play
the song yourself. Most of the details of the work out solution are right there, and your job is simply
to figure out why the steps are taken the way they are. They can help you see the key features, and
underline principles of a problem.
One concern about using worked out examples in math and science to help you in starting to form
chunks, is that it can be all too easy to focus too much on why an individual step works and not on
the connection between steps. That is, on why this particular step is the next thing you should do.
So keep in mind that I'm not just talking about a cookie-cutter, just-do-as-you're told, mindless
approach when following a worked-out solution. It's more like using a road map to help you when
traveling to a new place. Pay attention to what's going on around you when you're using the map,

P a g e | 23

and soon you'll find yourself able to get there on your own. You'll even be able to figure out new
ways of getting there.
Next, we'll walk you through the actual steps of chunk formation. I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for
learning how to learn.
[MUSIC] #Hey little girl sometimes the times get hard but soon #the storm will pass and you'll be
playing in the yard. #Hey little girl sometimes you might feel sad but some #day you'll realize it
really ain't that bad. Just part of growing up.# [MUSIC]

P a g e | 24

How to Form a Chunk Part 2

[SOUND]
In this video I'm going to walk you through the basic steps behind how to make a chunk. Every
discipline is a little different. Chunking in the subject of history, for example, is quite different from
chunking in chemistry or in karate. In my explanations here, I'm going to lean a little more towards
explaining chunking of mental ideas rather than physical body motions. But you'll see that the two
approaches are closely related. So, whether you're learning something mental or something
physical, you'll find some helpful ideas here.
The first step on chunking is simply to focus your undivided attention on the information you want to
chunk. If you had the television going on in the background, or you're looking up every few minutes
to check or answer your phone or computer messages, it means you're going to have more difficulty
in making a chunk, because your brain is not really focusing on chunking the new material. When
you first begin to learn something, you're making new neural patterns and connecting them with
pre-existing patterns that are spread through many areas of the brain. Your octopus tentacles, so to
speak, can't reach very well if some of them are off on other thoughts using up some of the limited
slots in your working memory.
The second step in chunking is to understand the basic idea you're trying to chunk, whether it's
understanding a concept such as continental drift, seeing the connection between the basic
elements of the plot for a story, grasping the economic principle of supply and demand, or
comprehending the essence of a particular type of math problem. Students can often synthesize the
gist; that is figure out the main idea or ideas, pretty naturally. Or at least they can grasp those ideas
if they allow the focused and diffuse modes of thinking to take turns in helping them figure out
what's going on. Understanding is like a superglue that helps hold the underlying memory traces
together. It creates broad encompassing traces that can link to other memory traces. Can you
create a chunk if you don't understand? Yes, but it's often a useless chunk that won't fit in with, or
relate to other material of your learning. That said, it's important to realize that just understanding
how a problem was solved, for example, does not necessarily create a chunk that you can easily call
to mind later. Don't confuse the "Aha!" of a breakthrough in understanding, with solid expertise.
That's part of why you can grasp an idea when a teacher presents it in class, but if you don't review it
fairly soon after you first learned it, it can seem incomprehensible when it comes time to prepare for
a test. In math and science related subjects, closing the book and testing yourself on whether you,
yourself, can solve the problem you think you understand, will speed up your learning at this stage.
You often realize the first time you actually understand something is when you can actually do it
yourself. It's the same in many disciplines, just looking at someone else's painting doesn't mean you
could actually create that painting yourself, and just hearing a song won't give you the expertise you
need to sing it in the same resonant fashion. >> [MUSIC] >> Just because you see it or even that you
understand it, it doesn't mean that you can actually do it. Only doing it yourself helps create the
neural patterns that underlie true mastery.
The third step to chunking is gaining context, so you can see not just how, but also when to use this
chunk. Context means going beyond the initial problem and seeing more broadly, repeating and
practicing with both related and unrelated problems, so that you can see not only when to use the

P a g e | 25

chunk, but when not to use it. This helps you see how your newly formed chunk fits into the bigger
picture. In other words, you may have a tool in your strategy or problem solving tool box, but if you
don't know when to use that tool, it's not going to do you a lot of good. Ultimately, practice helps
you broaden the networks of neurons that are connected to your chunk, ensuring it's not only firm,
but also accessible from many different paths. As you can see from this top down, bottom up
illustration, learning takes place in two ways. There's a bottom up chunking process, where practice
and repetition can help you both build and strengthen each chunk, so you can easily access it
whenever you need to. And there's also a, a sort of a top down big picture process that allows you to
see what you're learning and where it fits in. Both processes are vital in gaining mastery over the
material. Context is where bottom up and top down learning meet. To clarify here, chunking may
involve your learning how to use a certain problem-solving technique. Context means learning when
to use that technique instead of some other technique. Doing a rapid two-minute picture walk
through a chapter in a book before you begin studying it, glancing at pictures and section headings,
can allow you to gain a sense of the big picture. So can listening to a very well organized lecture.
These kinds of activities can help you know where to put the chunks you're constructing, how the
chunks relate to one another, just as you see here, with the image of the man in the car. Learn the
major concepts or points first. These are often the key parts of a good instructor or book chapter's
outline, flow charts, tables, or concept maps. Once you have this done, fill in the details. Even if a
few of the puzzle pieces are missing at the end of your studies, you can still see the big picture. So
there you go!
Summing it up, chunks are best built with focused attention, understanding of the basic idea, and
practice to help you gain mastery and a sense of the big picture context. Those are the essential
steps in making a chunk and fitting that chunk into a greater conceptual overview of what you're
learning. But there's more.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn. [BLANK_AUDIO]

P a g e | 26

Illusions of Competence
[SOUND]. In this video, we're going to talk about some essential ideas in getting your learning on
track. The importance of recall, illusions of competence in learning. Mini-testing and the value of
making mistakes.
One of the most common approaches for trying to learn material from a book or from notes is simply
to reread it. But psychologist, Jeffrey Karpicke, has shown that this approach is actually much less
productive than another, very simple, technique. Recall. After you've read the material, simply look
away, and see what you can recall from the material you've just read. Karpicke's research, published
in the Journal Science, provided solid evidence along these lines. Students studied a scientific text
and then practiced it, by recalling as much of the information as they could. Then they re-studied
the text and recalled it again. That is, they tried to remember the key ideas, once more. The results,
in the same amount of time, by simply practicing and recalling the material students learned far
more and at a much deeper level than they did using any other approach. Including simply rereading
the text a number of times. Or drawing concept maps that supposedly enrich the relationships in the
materials under study.
This improved learning comes whether students take a formal test, or just informally test
themselves. This gives an important reminder. When we retrieve knowledge, we're not just being
mindless robots. The retrieval process itself enhances deep learning, and helps us to begin forming
chunks. It's almost as if the recall process helps build in little neural hooks, that we can hang our
thinking on. Even more of a surprise to researchers, was that the students themselves predicted that
simply reading and recalling the materials, wasn't the best way to learn. They thought, concept
mapping, drawing diagrams that show the relationship between the concepts would be the best.
But if you're trying to build connections between chunks, before the basic chunks are embedded in
the brain, it doesn't work as well. It's like trying to learn advanced strategy in chess, before you even
understand the basic concepts of how the pieces move. Using recall, mental retrieval of the key
ideas, rather than passive rereading, will make your study time more focused and effective. The only
time rereading text seems to be effective, is if you let time pass between the rereading, so that it
becomes more of an exercise in spaced repetition.
One way to think about this type of learning and recall, is shown right here. As we mentioned
earlier, there are four or so slots, in working memory. When you're first learning how to understand
a concept, or technique to solve a problem, your entire working memory is involved in the process.
As shown by this sort of, mad tangle of connections between the four slots of working memory. As
you begin to chunk the concept, you will feel it connecting more easily and smoothly in your mind.
Once the concept is chunked, it takes up only one slot in working memory. It simultaneously
becomes one smooth strand that's easy to follow, and to use to make new connections. The rest of
your working memory is left clear. That dangling strand of chunked material has, in some sense,
increased the amount of information available to your working memory. It's as if the slot in working
memory is a hyperlink that's been connected to a great big web page.
Now you understand why it is key that you are the one doing the problem solving or mastering the
concept. Not whoever wrote the solution manual, or book, on whatever subject you're studying. If
you just look at the solution, for example, then tell yourself. Oh yeah, I see why they did that. Then

P a g e | 27

the solution is not really yours. You've done almost nothing to knit those concepts into your own
underlying neural circuitry. Merely glancing at a solution and thinking you truly know it yourself is
one of the most common illusions of competence in learning. You must have the information
persisting in your memory if you're to master the material well enough to do well on tests and to
think creatively with it. In a related thing, you may be surprised to learn that highlighting and
underlining must be done very carefully. Otherwise it can not only be ineffective, but also
misleading. It's as if, making lots of motions with your hand can fool you into thinking you've placed
the concept in your brain. If you do mark up the text, try to look for main ideas before making any
marks. And try to keep your underlining or highlighting to a minimum. One sentence or less per
paragraph.
On the other hand, words or notes in a margin that synthesize key concepts are a very good idea.
Jeff Karpicke, the same researcher who's done such important work related to recall, has also done
research on a related topic. Illusions of competence in learning. The reason students like to keep
rereading their notes or a textbook, is that when they have the book or Google open right in front of
them, it provides the illusion that the material is also in their brains. But it's not, because it can be
easier to look at the book instead of recalling, students persist in their illusions studying in a way that
just isn't very effective. This is a reminder that just wanting to learn the material, and spending a lot
of time with it, doesn't guarantee you'll actually learn it. A super helpful way to make sure you're
learning and not fooling yourself with illusions of competence, is to test yourself on whatever you're
learning. In some sense, that's what recall is actually doing. Allowing you to see whether or not you
really grasp an idea. If you make a mistake in what you are doing, it's actually a very good thing. You
want to try not to repeat you mistakes, of course, but mistakes are very valuable to make in your
little self-tests before high stakes real tests. Because they allow you to make repairs and you're
thinking flaws bit by bit mistakes help correct your thinking, so that you can learn better and do
better.
As you know now recall is a powerful tool. But here's another tip, recalling material when you are
outside your usual place of study can also help you strengthen your grasp of the material. You don't
realize it, but when you are learning something new you can often take in subliminal cues for the
room and the space around you at the time you were originally learning the material. This can throw
you off when you take tests because you often take tests in a room that's different from the room
you were learning in. By recalling and thinking about the material when you are in various physical
environment, you become independent of the cues from any one given location. That helps you
avoid the problem of the test room being different from where you originally learned the material.
I'm Barbara Oakley, thanks for learning about learning.

P a g e | 28

What Motivates You?

Welcome back! It is hard to learn when you're not into it. But if it's something you're really
interested in, learning is easy. Why is that?
Most of the neurons in your cortex carry information about what is happening around you and what
you're doing. Your brain also has a set of diffusely projecting systems of neuromodulators, that carry
information not about the content of an experience but its importance and value to your future,
neuromodulators are chemicals that influence how a neurons responds to other neurons. And today
we will discuss three of them. Acetylcholine, Dopamine and Serotonin.
Acetylcholine neurons form neuromodulatory connections to the cortex that are particularly
important for focused learning, when you are paying close attention. These acetylcholine neurons
project widely and activate circuits that control synaptic plasticity. Leading to new long term
memory. Neuromodulators also have a profound impact on your unconscious mind.
One of the great brain discoveries in my life time, has been that our motivation is controlled by a
particular chemical substance called Dopamine. Which is found in a small set of neurons in our brain
stem shown here in orange. These dopamine neurons are part of a large brain system that controls
reward learning and in particular in the basal ganglia, which is located in the green region above the
dopamine neurons and below the cortex at the top of the brain. Dopamine is released from these
neurons, when we receive an unexpected reward. Dopamine signals project widely and have a very
powerful effect on learning. And this is something that also affects decision-making. And even the
value of sensory inputs.
Dopamine is in the business of predicting future rewards and not just the immediate reward. This
can motivate you to do something that may not be rewarding right now but will lead to a much
better reward in the future. Addictive drugs artificially increase dopamine activity and fool your
brain into thinking that something wonderful has just happened. In fact just the opposite has just
happened. This leads to craving and dependence, which can hijack your free will and can motivate
actions that are harmful to you. Loss of Dopamine neurons leads to a lack of motivation; and
something called anhedonia, which is a loss of interest in things that once gave you pleasure. Severe
loss of Dopamine neurons causes resting tremor, slowness, rigidity, this is called Parkinson's disease.
Ultimately it leads to catatonia, a complete lack of any movement. Dopamine neurons are part of
the unconscious part of your brain that you learned about in the first week. When you promise to
treat yourself something after a study section you are tapping into your dopamine system.
Serotonin is a third diffuse neuromodulatory system that strongly affects your social life. In monkey
troops the alpha male has the highest level of serotonin activity and the lowest ranking male has the
lowest levels. Prozac, which is prescribed for clinical depression, raises the level of Serotonin
activity. The level of Serotonin is also closely linked to risk taking behavior. With higher risk in lower
Serotonin monkeys. Inmates in jail for violent crimes have some of the lowest levels of serotonin
activity in society.
Finally your emotions strongly affect learning as you are well aware. Emotions were once thought to
be separate from cognition but recent research has shown that emotions are intertwined with

P a g e | 29

perception and attention and interact with learning and memory. The amygdala an almond shaped
structure shown here, nestled down at the base of the brain is one of the major centers where
cognition and emotion are effectively integrated. The amygdala is part of the limbic system which
together with hippocampus is involved in processing memory and decision making as well as
regulating emotional reactions. You will want to keep your amygdala happy to be an effective
learner. The emotions and your neuromodulatory systems are slower than perception and action
but are no less important for successful learning.
If you want to learn more about Acetylcholine, Dopamine, and Serotonin, look them on
www.brainfacts.org, a website that is filled with valuable facts about your brain.
I'm Terry Sejnowski. Happy learning, until we meet again.

P a g e | 30

The Value of a Library of Chunks

[SOUND]
The ability to combine chunks in new and original ways underlies a lot of historical innovation. Bill
Gates and other industry leaders set aside extended week-long reading periods so that they can hold
many and varied ideas in mind during one time. This helps generate their own innovative thinking by
allowing fresh in mind not yet forgotten ideas to network amongst themselves.
Basically what people do to enhance their knowledge and gain expertise is to gradually build the
number of chunks in their mind. Valuable bits of information, they can piece together in new and
creative ways. Chess masters, for example, can easily access thousands of different chess patterns.
Musicians, linguists and scientists can each access similar chunks of knowledge in their own
disciplines. The bigger and more well practiced your chunked mental library, whatever the subject
you're learning, the more easily you'll be able to solve problems and figure out solutions. As we'll
discover soon, chunking isn't all you'll need to develop creative flexibility in your learning. But it's an
important component.
Chunks can also help you understand new concepts. This is because when you grasp one chunk,
you'll find that that chunk can be related in surprising ways to similar chunks, not only in that field,
but also in very different fields. This idea is called transfer. For example, concepts and problems
solving methods you learned for physics can be very similar to chunked concepts in business. I've
found some aspects of language learning were very helpful for me when I later began to learn
Computer Programming.
A chunk is a way of compressing information much more compactly. As you gain more experience in
chunking in particular subject, you'll see that the chunks you're able to create are bigger. In some
sense, that the ribbons are longer. Not only are those ribbons longer but the neural patterns are in
some sense darker. They're more solid and firmly ingrained. If you have a library of concepts and
solutions internalized as chunked patterns, you can think of it as a collection or a library of neural
patterns. When you're trying to figure something out, if you have a good library of these chunks, you
can more easily skip to the right solution by metaphorically speaking, listening to whispers from your
diffuse mode. Your diffuse mode can help you connect two or more chunks together in new ways to
solve novel problems. Another way to think of it is this. As you build each chunk, it is filling in a part
of your larger knowledge picture. But if you don't practice with your growing chunks, they can
remain faint, and it's harder to put together the big picture of what you're trying to learn.
In building a chunked library, you're training your brain to recognize not only a specific concept, but
different types and classes of concepts so that you can automatically know how to solve quickly or
handle whatever you encounter. You'll start to see patterns that simplify problem solving for you
and will soon find that different solution techniques are lurking at the edge of your memory. Before
midterms or finals it can be easy to brush up and have these solutions at the mental ready.
There are two ways to figure something out or to solve problems. First there's sequential step by
step reasoning, and second through a more holistic intuition. Sequential thinking, where each small
step leads deliberately towards a solution, involves the focused mode. Intuition on the other hand
often seems to require this creative diffuse mode linking of several seemingly different focused

P a g e | 31

mode thoughts. Most difficult problems and concepts are grasped through intuition, because these
new ideas make a leap away from what you're familiar with. Keep in mind that the diffuse mode's
semi-random way of making connections means that the solutions they provide should be very
carefully verified using the focused mode. Intuitive insights aren't always correct. You may think
there are so many problems and concepts, just in a single section or chapter of whatever you're
studying, there's just no way to learn them all. This is where the law of serendipity comes into play.
Lady luck favors the one who tries. Just focus on whatever section you're studying. You'll find that
once you put that first problem or concept in your mental library, whatever it is, then the second
concept will go in a little more easily. And the third more easily still. Not that all of this is a snap, but
it does get easier.
I am Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning about learning. [BLANK_AUDIO]

P a g e | 32

Overlearning, Chocking, Einstellung, and Interleaving

When you're learning a new idea, for example a new vocabulary word or a new concept or a new
problem solving approach, you sometimes tend to practice it over and over again during the same
study session. A little of this is useful and necessary, but continuing to study or practice after you've
mastered what you can in the session is called overlearning.
Overlearning can have its place. It can produce an automaticity that can be important when you're
executing a serve in tennis or a perfect piano concerto. If you choke on tests or public speaking,
overlearning can be especially valuable. You know that even expert public speakers practice on the
order of 70 hours for a typical 20-minute TED Talk? Automaticity can indeed be helpful in times of
nervousness, but be wary of repetitive overlearning during a single session. Research has shown it
can be a waste of valuable learning time. The reality is, once you've got the basic idea down during a
session, continuing to hammer away at it during the same session doesn't strengthen the kinds of
long term memory connections you want to have strengthened. Worse yet, focusing on one
technique is a little like learning carpentry by only practicing with a hammer. After a while you think
you can fix anything by just bashing at it.
Using a subsequent study session to repeat what you're trying to learn is just fine and often valuable.
It can strengthen and deepen your chunked neuron patterns. But be wary; repeating something you
already know perfectly well, is, face it, easy. It can also bring the illusion of competence that you've
mastered the full range of material, when you've actually only mastered the easy stuff. Instead, you
want to balance your studies by deliberately focusing on what you find more difficult. This focusing
on the more difficult material is called deliberate practice. It's often what makes the difference
between a good student and a great student.
All this is also related to a concept known as Einstellung. In this phenomenon, your initial simple
thought, an idea you already have in mind or a neural pattern you've already developed and
strengthened, may prevent a better idea or solution from being found. We saw this in the focus
pinball picture, where your initial pinball of thought went to the upper part of the brain, but the
solution thought pattern was in the lower part. The crowded bumpers of the focus mode and the
previous patterns you built can create a sort of rut that prevents you from springing to a new place
where the solution might be found.
Incidentally, the German word Einstellung means mindset. Basically you can remember einstellung
as installing a roadblock because of the way you were initially looking at something. This kind of
wrong approach is especially easy to do in sports and science, not to mention other disciplines,
because sometimes your initial intuition about what's happening or what you need to be doing is
misleading. You have to unlearn your erroneous older ideas or approaches even while you're
learning new ones.
One significant mistake students sometimes make in learning is jumping into the water before they
learn to swim. In other words, they blindly start working on homework without reading the textbook,
attending lectures, viewing online lessons, or even speaking with someone knowledgeable. This is a
recipe for sinking. It's like randomly allowing a thought to, kind of pop off in the focus mode pinball

P a g e | 33

machine, without paying any real attention to where the solution truly lies. Understanding how to
obtain real solutions is important in learning and in life.
Mastering a new subject means learning not only the basic chunks, but also learning how to select
and use different chunks. The best way to learn that is by practicing jumping back and forth
between problems or situations that require different techniques or strategies. This is called
interleaving. Once you have the basic idea of the technique down during your study session, sort of
like learning to ride a bike with training wheels, start interleaving your practice with problems of
different types or different types of approaches, concepts, procedures. Sometimes this can be a
little tough to do. A given section in a book, for example, is often devoted to a specific technique, so
when you flip to that section you already know which technique you're going to be using. Still, do
what you can to mix up your learning.
In science and math in particular it can help to look ahead at the more varied problem sets that are
sometimes found at the end of chapters. Or you can deliberately try to make yourself occasionally
pick out why some problems call for one technique as opposed to another. You want your brain to
become used to the idea that just knowing how to use a particular concept, approach, or problemsolving technique isn't enough. You also need to know when to use it. Interleaving your studies,
making it a point to review for a test, for example, by skipping around through problems in the
different chapters and materials can sometimes seem to make your learning a little more difficult,
but in reality, it helps you learn more deeply.
Interleaving is extraordinarily important. Although practice and repetition is important in helping
build solid neural patterns to draw on, it's interleaving that starts building flexibility and creativity.
It's where you leave the world of practice and repetition, and begin thinking more independently.
When you interleave within one subject or one discipline, you begin to develop your creative power
within that discipline. When you interleave between several subjects or disciplines, you can more
easily make interesting new connections between chunks in the different fields, which can enhance
your creativity even further. Of course it takes time to develop solid chunks of knowledge in
different fields, so sometimes there's a tradeoff. Developing expertise in several fields means you
can bring very new ideas from one field to the other, but it can also mean that your expertise in one
field or the other isn't quite as deep as that of the person who specializes in only one discipline. On
the other hand, if you develop expertise in only one discipline, you may know it very deeply but you
may become more deeply entrenched in your familiar way of thinking and not be able to handle new
ideas.
Philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn discovered that most paradigm shifts in science are brought
about either young people or people who were originally trained in a different discipline. They're not
so easily trapped by einstellung, blocked thoughts due to their preceding training. And of course
there's the old saying that science progresses one funeral at a time as people entrenched in the old
ways of looking at things die off.
Finally, don't make the mistake of thinking that learning only occurs in the kinds of subjects you
acquire from teachers or books. When you teach a child how to deal effectively with a bully, or you
fix a leaky faucet, or you quickly pack a small suitcase for a business trip to Hong Kong, all of these
illustrate the outcomes of important aspects of learning. Physicist Richard Feynman was inspired in

P a g e | 34

his Nobel Prize-winning work by watching someone throw a dinner plate into the air in a cafeteria.
Mike Rowe of the television shows Dirty Jobs and Somebody's Gotta Do It shows how important and
exciting learning can be in a variety of different, non-academic disciplines.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning about learning.

P a g e | 35

Summary Week 2
[SOUND]
In this video, I'm going to synthesize some of the main ideas of this week's videos. In other words,
we'll chunk our week on chunking. Here we go:

Chunks are pieces of information, neuroscientifically speaking, that are bound together
through use and often through meaning. You can think of a chunk as a scintillating network
of neurons that compactly synthesizes key ideas or actions.

Chunks can get bigger and more complex. But at the same time, they're a single easy to
access item that you can fit like a ribbon into the slot on your working memory.

Chunks are best built with focused, undivided attention, understanding of the basic idea, and
practice to help deepen your patterns and to help you gain big picture context.

Simple recall, trying to remember the key points without looking at the page, is one of the
best ways to help the chunking process along. It seems to help build neural hooks. They
help you better understand the material. Also try recalling material in places that are
different from where you originally learned the material, so it becomes more deeply
ingrained and accessible, regardless of what room you're in. This can be very helpful for
tests.

Transfer is the idea that a chunk you've mastered in one area can often help you much more
easily learn chunks of information in different areas that can share surprising commonalities.

Interleave your learning by practicing your choice of different concepts, approach, and
techniques all in one session. Chunks are very important, but they don't necessarily build
flexibility, which is also important in becoming an expert with the material you're learning.

Illusions of competence in learning learn to recognize when you're fooling yourself about
whether you're actually learning the material. Test yourself frequently. Using little minitests to see whether you're actually learning the material, or whether you've been fooling
yourself, thinking you're learning when you're actually not. Recall is actually a form of minitesting. Try to avoid depending too much on highlighting, which can fool you into thinking
that the material is going into your brain when it actually isn't.

Mistakes are a good thing to make when you're learning. They allow you to catch illusions of
competence. Avoid practicing only the easy stuff, which can bring the illusion that you've
mastered the material.

Deliberately practice what you find more difficult to gain full mastery of the material.

Einstellung is when your initial thought, an idea you've already had in mind, or a neural
pattern you've already developed well and strengthened, prevents a better idea or solution

P a g e | 36

from being found. Or keeps you from being flexible enough to accept new, better, or more
appropriate solutions. The Law of Serendipity is helpful Lady Luck favors the one who
tries. Just pick one tiny thing out to learn, then another. Just keep trying and you'll be
pleasantly surprised at the results.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning about learning. [BLANK_AUDIO]

P a g e | 37

Introduction to Procrastination and Memory

[BLANK_AUDIO]
This week we're going to be talking about two seemingly different ideas. Procrastination and
memory. But the two topics are intimately related. Why? Because building solid chunks of long term
memory, chunks that are easily accessible by your short term memory, takes time. It's not the kind
of thing you want to be putting off until the last minute. You already have one good tool for
procrastination. The pomodoro. That powerful 25 minute concentrated period of energized focus.
This week we're going to fill you in with more information about how procrastination happens and
simple ways to tackle it. And this is key. Ways that don't take much will power, then we'll move on
to talking about some of the best ways to access your brain's most powerful long-term memory
systems.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn.

P a g e | 38

Tackling Procrastination: Its easier and more valuable than you think
Arsenic is incredibly toxic. For centuries until modern methods of detection were discovered,
murderers found it to be a very popular substance. So you can imagine the shock at the 48th
meeting of the German Association of Arts and Sciences in 1875 when two men sat in the front of the
audience and downed more than double a deadly dose of arsenic. The next day the men were back
at the conference smiling and healthy. How is it possible to take something so bad for you and stay
alive, and even look healthy, despite the damage being done at a microscopic level to your body?
The answer has an uncanny relationship to procrastination that's what we're going to be talking
about in the next few videos.
You've already learned one handy tool to help you with procrastination, the Pomodoro, that 25
minute period of uninterrupted focus followed by a bit of relaxation. This week we're going to learn
more. Understanding a little about the cognitive psychology of procrastination, just like
understanding the chemistry of poison, can help us develop healthy preventatives. In these videos,
I'm going to teach you the lazy person's approach to tackling procrastination. This means you'll be
learning about your inner zombies the routine, habitual responses your brain falls into as a result of
specific cues. These zombie responses are often focused on making the here and now better. As
you'll see you can trick some of these zombies into helping you fend off procrastination when you
need to.
Not all procrastination is bad. Even if you're pretty good already in handling procrastination you'll
learn some helpful insights here that can allow you to better prioritize your learning. The reason that
learning to avoid procrastination is so important is that good learning is a bit by bit activity. You
want to avoid cramming which doesn't build solid neural structures. By putting the same amount of
time into your learning but spacing that learning out by starting earlier you'll learn better. First
things first.
Unlike procrastination which is easy to fall into, willpower is hard to come by. It uses a lot of neural
resources. You shouldn't waste willpower on fending off procrastination except when absolutely
necessary. Best of all as you'll see you don't need to. If you'll remember we procrastinate about
things that make us a little bit uncomfortable. You think about something you don't particularly like
and the pain centers of your brain light up so you shift and narrow your focus of attention to
something more enjoyable. This causes you to feel better. At least temporarily but sadly the long
term effects of habitual avoidance can be nasty. When you put off your studies it can become even
more painful to think about studying it. You can choke on tests because you haven't laid the firm
neural foundations you need to feel comfortable with the material.
Procrastination can be a single monumentally important keystone bad habit, a habit in other words
that influences many important areas of your life. If you improve your abilities in this area many
other positive changes will gradually begin to unfold. Procrastination shares features with addiction.
It offers temporary excitement and relief from sometimes boring reality. It's easy to fool yourself for
example into thinking that the best use of any given moment is. Surfing the web for information
instead of actually reading the textbook or doing the assigned problems. You start to tell yourself
stories. For example you might tell yourself that organic chemistry requires special reasoning, your
weakness, so of course you're doing very poorly at it. You devise irrational excuses that sound

P a g e | 39

superficially reasonable like if I study too far ahead of the test I'll forget the material. If you're
troubled by procrastination you may even start telling yourself that procrastination is an innate
unchangeable characteristic. After all if procrastination were easily fixable wouldn't you have fixed it
by now?
The higher you go in your studies however the more important it is to take control of procrastination.
Habits that worked in earlier years can turn around and bite you. What I'll show you in these next
few videos is how you can become the master of your habit. You should be making the decisions,
not your well-meaning but unthinking zombies, your habits. As you'll see, the strategies for dealing
with procrastination are simple. It's just that sometimes they aren't intuitively obvious.
So let's return to that story that began this video. The arsenic eaters started with tiny doses of
arsenic. In tiny doses, arsenic doesn't seem harmful. You can even build up an immunity to its
effects. This can allow you to take larger doses and look healthy, even as the poison is slowly
increasing your risk of cancer and ravaging your organs. In a similar way procrastinators put off just
that one little thing. They do it again and again gradually growing used to it. They can even look
healthy but the long term effects? Not so good.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn.

P a g e | 40

Zombies Everywhere
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Just imagine backing out of a driveway for the first time ever in your life. For some of you, that
might seem like a pretty exciting proposition. The first time you might do this you would be in hyper
alert. The deluge of information coming at you would make the job seem almost impossibly
difficult. But, once you've chunked how to back up down your driveway, all you have to do is think,
let's go. And, off you go. Your brain goes into this sort of zombie mode, where it is only semi aware
of a few key factors, instead of being overwhelmed by all the data. It's the same idea with riding a
bicycle. At first, it's really hard, later it's easy.
Neuro-scientifically speaking, chunking is related to habit. Habit is an energy saver for us. It allows
us to free our mind for other types of activities. You go into this habitual zombie mode far more
often than you might think. That's the point of habit, you don't have to think in a focused manner
about what youre doing while you're performing the habit. It saves energy. Habits can be good and
bad. They can be brief, like absently brushing back your hair. Or they can be long, for example when
you take a walk, or watch television for a few hours after you get home from work.
You can think of habits as having four parts. The first is the cue. This is the trigger that launches you
into zombie mode. The cue may be something as simple as seeing the first item in your to do list.
Time to start next week's homework. Or seeing a text message from a friend. Time to stop work. A
cue by itself is, neither helpful nor harmful; it's the routine. What we do in reaction to that cue, that's
what matters.
Number two the routine. This is your zombie mode. The routine habitual response your brain is
used to falling into when it receives the cue. Zombie responses can be useful, harmless, or
sometimes harmful.
Number three, the reward. Every habit develops and continues because it rewards us. It gives us an
immediate little feeling of pleasure. Procrastination's an easy habit to develop because the reward,
moving your mind's focus to something more pleasant, happens so quickly and easily. But good
habits can also be rewarded. Finding ways to reward good study habits is important for escaping
procrastination.
Number four the belief. Habits have power because of your belief in them. For example, you might
feel you'll never be able to change your habits of putting off your studies until late in the day. To
change a habit, you'll need to change your underlying belief.
I'm Barbara Oakley, thanks for learning how to learn.

P a g e | 41

Surfs Up: Process versus Product

[BLANK_AUDIO]
One of the best ways of being effective in your learning is to use mental tools and tricks to inspire
and motivate yourself. First, when it comes to learning in general, you should realize that it's
perfectly normal to start with a few negative feelings about beginning a learning session. Even when
it's a subject you ordinary like, it's how you handle those feelings that matters. Researchers have
found that non-procrastinators put their negative thinking aside saying things to themselves like:
quit wasting time and just get on with it, once you get going, you'll feel better about it. If you find
yourself avoiding certain tasks because they make you feel uncomfortable, you should know there's
another helpful way to re-frame things. And that's to learn to focus on process not product.
Process means, the flow of time and the habits and actions associated with that flow of time. As in,
I'm going to spend 20 minutes working. Product is an outcome, for example, a homework
assignment that you need to finish. To prevent procrastination you want to avoid concentrating on
product. Instead, your attention should be on building processes. Processes relate to simple habits,
habits that coincidentally allow you to do the unpleasant tasks that need to be done. For example,
lets say you don't like doing homework in a particular class. So you put off working on the
homework. It's only five questions you think. How hard could that be? Deep down, you realize that
answering these five questions could be a very lengthy job. It's easier to live in a fantasy world where
the five questions, or the ten page report or whatever, can be done at the last minute. Your
challenge is to avoid focusing on the product, the answers to the questions. The product is what
triggers the pain that causes you to procrastinate. Instead, you need to focus on the process or
processes the small chunks of time you need over days or even weeks to answer the questions or
prepare for tests. Who cares whether you finish the homework or grasp the key concepts in any one
session. The whole point instead, is that you calmly put forth your best effort for a short period.
Now process. Notice how in this picture physicist and surfer Garret Lacy is focused on the moment.
Not on the accomplishment of having surfed that wave. For you, one of the easiest ways to focus on
process is to focus on doing a Pomodoro, a 25 minute timed work session, not on completing a task.
The essential idea here is that the zombie habitual part of your brain likes processes because it can
march mindlessly along. It's far easier to enlist the friendly zombie habit to help with a process, than
to help with a product. By focusing on process rather than product, you allow yourself to back away
from judging yourself, am I getting closer to finishing? And instead you allow yourself to relax into
the flow of the work. The key is when a distraction arises, which it inevitably will, you want to train
yourself to just let it flow by. Of course, setting yourself up so that distractions are minimal is also a
very good idea. Many students find that either a quiet space or noise canceling headphones if, if you
can afford them, can be helpful when they're really trying to concentrate.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning above learning. [BLANK_AUDIO]

P a g e | 42

Harnessing Your Zombies to Help You

[BLANK_AUDIO]
In this video, we're going to get into the specifics of harnessing your zombie powers of habit to help
you avoid procrastination while minimizing your use of willpower. You don't want to do a full scale
change of old habits. You just want to override parts of them and develop a few new ones. The trick
to overriding a habit is to look to change your reaction to a cue. The only place you need to apply
willpower is to change your reaction to the cue. To understand that, it helps to go back through the
four components of habit and re-analyze them from the perspective of procrastination.
The first one is the cue. Recognize what launches you into your zombie procrastination mode. Cues
usually fall into one of the four following categories:
1. Location
2. Time
3. How you feel, and
4. Reactions either to other people or to something that just happened
Do you look something up on the web and then find yourself web surfing? Does a text message
disturb your studying taking you 10 minutes to get back into the flow of things even when you try to
keep yourself on task? The issue with procrastination is that because it's an automatic habit, you're
often unaware that you've begun to procrastinate. You can prevent the most damaging cues by
shutting off your cell phone or keeping yourself away from the internet and other distractions for
brief periods of time, as when you're doing a pomodoro.
Number two, the routine. Let's say then instead of doing your studies you often divert your attention
to something less painful. Your brain wants to automatically go into this routine when you've gotten
your cue. So this, is the reaction clue where you must actively focus on re-wiring your old habit. The
key to re-wiring is to have a plan. Developing a new ritual can be helpful. Some students make it a
habit to leave their phone in their car when they head in for class which removes a potent distraction.
Many students discovered the value of settling into a quiet spot in the library or closer to home, the
productive effects of simply sitting in a favorite chair at the proper time with all Internet access
disconnected. Your plan may not work perfectly at first, but just keep at it. Adjust the plan if
necessary, and savor those victories when your plan works. Don't try to change everything at once.
The Pomodoro technique can be especially helpful in shifting your reaction to the cues.
Number three is the reward. This can sometimes require a little bit of investigation. Why are you
procrastinating? Can you substitute an emotional payoff, maybe a feeling of pride for accomplishing
something, even if it's small, a sense of satisfaction? Can you win a small internal bet or a contest
about something you've turned into a personal game or allow yourself to indulge in a latte or read a
favorite web site, provide yourself, maybe, with an evening of mindless television or web surfing
without guilt, and will you give yourself a bigger reward for a bigger achievement? Maybe movie
tickets or a sweater or an utterly frivolous purchase. Remember that habits are powerful because
they create neurological cravings. It helps to add a new reward if you want to overcome your
previous cravings. Only once your brain starts expecting that reward will the important rewiring take
place that will allow you to create new habits. Many people find that setting a reward at a specific

P a g e | 43

time, for example, breaking for lunch with a friend at the deli at noon or stopping the main task at 5
p.m., gives a solid, mini deadline that can help spur work. Don't feel bad if you find you have trouble
getting into a flow state at first. I sometimes find it takes a few days of drudgery, through a few
cycles of the Pomodoro technique before flow begins to unfold. And I find myself starting to enjoy
work on a new topic. Also remember that the better you get at something, the more enjoyable it can
become.
Number four is the belief. The most important part of changing your procrastination habit is the
belief that you can do it. You may find that when the going gets stressful. You long to fall back into
old, more comfortable habits. Belief that your new system works is what can get you through. Part
of what can underpin is to develop a new community. Hang out with classmates, or virtually hang
out with MOOC-mates, who may have that can-do philosophy that you too want to develop.
Developing and encouraging culture with like-minded friends can help us remember the values that
in moments of weakness we tend to forget.
I'm Barbara Oakley, thanks for learning how to learn. [BLANK_AUDIO]

P a g e | 44

Juggling Life and Learning

[BLANK_AUDIO]
Learning for most people involves a complex balancing of many different tasks. A good way for you
to keep perspective about what you're trying to learn and accomplish, is to once a week write a brief
weekly list of key tasks in a planner journal. Then each day on another page of your planner journal,
write a list of the tasks that you can reasonably work on or accomplish. Try to write this daily task list
the evening before. Why the evening before? Research has shown that this helps your subconscious
to grapple with the tasks on the list so you can figure out how to accomplish them. Writing the list
before you go to sleep, enlists your zombies, to help you accomplish the items on the list the next
day. If you don't write your tasks down on a list, they lurk at the edge of the four or so slots of your
working memory, taking up valuable mental real estate. But once you make a task list, it frees
working memory for problem solving. So let's look at one of my daily task lists.
As you can see here, there are only six items. Some are process oriented. For example, I have a
paper due to a journal in several months. So, I spend a little focus time on most days working
towards completing it. A few items are product oriented. But that is only because they are doable
within a limited period of time. Note my reminders. I wanted to keep my focus on each item when
I'm working on it. And I want to have fun. I did catch myself getting side tracked, because I forgot to
shut down my email. To get myself back into gear, I set a 22 minute Pomodoro challenge, using a
timer on my computer desktop. Why 22 minutes? Well, why not? I, I don't have to do the same
thing each time. And notice, too, that by moving to Pomodoro mode, I've switched to a process
orientation. None of the items on my list is too big, because I've got other things going on in my day.
Meetings to go to, a lecture to give. Sometimes I sprinkle a few tasks that involve physical motion on
my list, even if it's just cleaning something. Which, I'll admit, isn't ordinarily one of my favorite
things to do. Somehow because I'm using them as diffuse mode breaks, I often look forward to
them.
Mixing other tasks up with your learning seems to make everything more enjoyable and keeps you
from prolonged and unhealthy bouts of sitting. Over time, as I've gained more experience, I've
gotten much better at gauging how long it takes to do any given task. You'll find yourself improving
quickly as you become more realistic about what you can reasonably do in any given time. Make
notes in your planner journal about what works and what doesn't. Notice my goal finish time for the
day, 5 p.m. doesn't seem quite right, does it? But it is right, and it's one of the most important
components of your daily planner journal. Planning your quitting time is as important as planning
your working time. Generally, I aim to quit at 5 p.m., although when I'm learning something new, it
can sometimes be a pleasure to look at it again after I've taken an evening break, just before I go to
sleep, and occasionally, there's a major project that I'm wrapping up, like say, this MOOC that has
me running into a bit of overtime. You might think, well, yeah, you know, but you're a professor
who's shall we say, past your youthful study days. Of course an early quitting time is fine for you.
However, one of my most admired study experts, Cal Newport, used the 5 p.m., quitting time
through most of his student career. He ended up getting his PhD from MIT. In other words, this
method, implausible though it may seem for some, can work for undergraduate and graduate
students in rigorous academic programs.

P a g e | 45

Time after time, those who are committed to maintaining healthy leisure time along with their hard
work, outperform those who doggedly pursue an endless treadmill. Of course, your life may not lend
itself to such a schedule with breaks and leisure time. You may be running on fumes with two jobs
and too many classes. But however your life is going, try to squeeze a little break time in. One more
thing as writing coach Daphne Graygrant recommends to her writing clients, eat your frogs first in
the morning. Try to work on a most important and most disliked task first. At least just one
Pomodoro, as soon as you wake up. This is incredibly effective. Do you need to sometimes make
changes in your plans because of unforeseen events? Of course, but remember the law of
serendipity; Lady Luck favors the one who tries. Planning well is part of trying. Keep your eye on
your learning goal, and try not to get too unsettled by occasional roadblocks.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn. [BLANK_AUDIO]

P a g e | 46

Summing Up Procrastination
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Learning well often involves bit by bit, day by day building of solid neural scaffolds. Rather like a
weight lifter builds muscle with day to day exercise. This is why tackling procrastination is so
incredibly important. You want to keep up with your learning and avoid last minute cramming. So
with that, here's an overview of the key aspects of tackling procrastination.

Keep a planner journal so you can easily track when you reach your goals and observe what
does and doesn't work.
Commit yourself to certain routines and tasks each day.
Write your planned tasks out the night before so your brain has time to dwell on your goals
and help ensure success.
Arrange your work into a series of small challenges.
Always make sure you, and your zombies, get lots of rewards.
Take a few minutes to savor the feelings of happiness and triumph, which also gives your
brain a chance to temporarily change modes.
Deliberately delay rewards until you've finished a task.
Watch for procrastination cues. Try putting yourself in new surroundings with few
procrastination cues, such as the quiet section of a library.
Gain trust in your new system. You want to work hard during times of focused concentration
and also to trust your system enough so that when it comes time to relax, you actually relax
without feelings of guilt or worry.
Have back up plans for when you still procrastinate. No ones perfect after all.
Eat your frogs first every day. Happy experimenting.

I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning, how to learn.

P a g e | 47

Diving Deeper into Memory

In this video and the next, we're going to deepen our understanding of memory. As you're probably
beginning to understand, memory is only part of learning and developing expertise but it's often an
important part. It may surprise you to learn that we have outstanding visual and spatial memory
systems that can help form part of our long-term memory. Here's what I mean.
If you were asked to look around a house you never visited before, you'd soon have a sense of the
general furniture layout and where the rooms were, color scheme, the pharmaceuticals in the
bathroom cupboard. In just a few minutes, your mind would acquire and retain thousands of new
pieces of information. Even weeks later, you'd still hold far more in your mind than if you'd spent the
same amount of time staring at a blank wall. Your mind is built to retain this kind of general
information about a place. You can greatly enhance your ability to remember if you tap into these
naturally super-sized, visual, spatial memorization abilities. Our ancestors never needed a vast
memory for names or numbers but they did need a memory for how to get back home from the
three day deer hunt, or for the location of those plump blueberries on the rocky slopes to the South
of the camp. These evolutionary needs helped lock in a superior "where things are" and "how they
look" memory system.
To begin tapping into your visual memory system try making a very memorable visual image
representing one key item you want to remember. For example, here's an image you could use to
remember Newton's second law, f = ma. This is a fundamental relationship relating force to mass
and acceleration (force = mass x acceleration). And it only took humans, oh, a couple of hundred
thousand years to figure out. The letter f in the formula could stand for flying, m could stand for
mule, and a, well that's up to you.
Part of the reason an image is so important to memory is that images connect directly to your right
brain's visual spatial centers. The image helps you encapsulate a seemingly humdrum and hard to
remember concept by tapping into visual areas with enhanced memory abilities. The more neural
hooks you can build by evoking the senses, the easier it will be for you to recall the concept and what
it means. Beyond merely seeing the mule, you can smell the mule, you can feel the same windy
pressure the mule is feeling. [SOUND]. You can even, hear the wind whistling past. The funnier and
more evocative the images, the better. Focusing your attention brings something into your
temporary working memory, but for that something to move from working memory to long term
memory two things should happen: the idea should be memorable; there's a gigantic flying mule
braying f = ma on my couch, and it must be repeated. Otherwise remember your tiny metabolic
vampires, they can suck away the neural pattern related to that memory before it can strengthen
and solidify.
Repetition is important. Even when you make something memorable, repetition helps get that
memorable item firmly lodged into long-term memory. Remember to repeat not a bunch of times in
one day but sporadically over several days. Index cards can often be helpful. Writing and saying
what you're trying to learn seems to enhance retention. For example, if you're trying to learn
concepts in physics you might take an index card and write the greek letter rho (). That's a common
abbreviation for density. You'd write it on one side and you'd write the remaining information on the
other. Handwriting helps you to more deeply encode, that is convert into neural memory structures

P a g e | 48

what you are trying to learn. While you're writing out the kilograms per cubic meter (kilogram/m3)
you might imagine a shadowy kilogram just feel that mass lurking in an oversize piece of baggage
that happens to be one meter on each side. The more you can turn what you're trying to remember
into something memorable, the easier it will be to recall.
You'll want to say the word and its meaning aloud to start setting auditory hooks to the material.
Next, just look at the side of the card with the Greek letter rho () on it, and see whether you can
remember what's on the other side of the card. If you can't, flip it over and remind yourself what
you're supposed to know. If you can remember, put the card away. Now, do something else.
Perhaps prepare another card and test yourself on it. Once you have several cards together, try
running through them all and even mixing them around to see if you can remember them. This helps
interleave your learning. Don't be surprised if you struggle a bit. Once you've given your cards a
good try, put them away. Wait and take them out again, maybe before you go to sleep. Remember
that sleep is when your mind repeats patterns and pieces together solutions. Briefly repeat what you
want to remember over several days. Perhaps for a few minutes each morning or each evening.
Gradually extend the time between the repetitions as the material firms itself into your mind.
By increasing your spacing as you become more certain of mastery, you'll lock the material more
firmly into place. Great flash card systems like Anki have built in algorithms that repeat in scale
ranging from days to months. Interestingly, one of the best ways to remember people's names, is to
simply try to retrieve the people's names from memory at increasing time intervals, after first
learning the name.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning, about learning. [BLANK_AUDIO]

P a g e | 49

What is Long Term Memory?

Welcome back to Learning How to Learn. What would it be like if you couldn't learn new things, you
would not be able to remember new people you met, or remember what you were told? This
actually happened to a famous patient in the annals of memory research whose initials were HM.
At the age of 27, HM had an operation for epilepsy that took out his hippocampus on both sides of
his brain. The hippocampus has a shape of a seahorse and is named from the Greek hippos, meaning
horse and kampos, meaning sea monster. The operation was a success. The epilepsy was cured but
the price was steep. HM could no longer remember new things. He had become profoundly
amnesic. Curiously, you could have a normal conversation with HM, but if you left the room for a few
minutes, he could not remember you or what you had discussed.
In the film Memento, the character played by Guy Pearce had this form of amnesia from a
concussion. Note that he tattooed his body with messages, so that he would not forget what he had
to do. HM could learn other things, like a new motor skill, but he could not remember having learned
it. There are multiple memory systems for different types of learning. From the studying HM and
animals with similar operations, we have learned that the hippocampus is important part of a brain
system for learning and memory of facts and events. Without the hippocampus and its inputs, it is
not possible to store new memories in the cortex, a process called memory consolidation that can
take many years. HM could remember things from his childhood but he had trouble remembering
things that had occurred in the years just before his operation, things that had not yet become fully
consolidated. Something similar happens when you have a bad concussion but this usually resolves,
unlike HM who never improved.
Memories are not fixed but living, breathing parts of your brain that are changing all of the time.
Whenever you recall a memory, it changes, a process called, reconsolidation. It is even possible to
implant false memories, which are indistinguishable from real ones by simply suggesting and
imagining, especially in children who have vivid imaginations.
Here is a summary:
The green process of consolidation takes the brain state in active memory and stores it in long term
memory by modifying synapses on the dendrites of neurons. These long term memories can remain
dormant for a long time until the memory is retrieved and reinstated, by the red process, in short
term working memory. The reinstated memory is in a new context, which can itself be transferred to
long term memory, thereby, altering the old memory through reconsolidation.
Our memories are intertwined with each other. As we learn new things, our old memories also
change. Like consolidation, reconsolidation also occurs during sleep. This is why it is more effective
to space learning over time, rather than mass learning all at once. If you want to study something for
an hour, you will retain it longer if you spend 10 minutes each month over a semester than an hour
on one day. In contrast, if you wait until the day before an exam to cram the material, you may be
able to retrieve for the next day on the exam but it will quickly fade from memory.

P a g e | 50

In addition to neurons, brains have several types of supporting cells called glial cells. The astrocyte is
the most abundant glial cell in the human brain. Astrocytes provide nutrients to neurons, maintain
extra cellular ion balance, and are involved with repair following injury. In this photo of the cortex,
the astrocytes are staying green and the neurons are blue. The intricate arms of the astrocytes wrap
around the neurons, each embracing thousands of synapses. A recent experiment suggest that
these astrocytes may also have an important role in learning. When human astrocytes were put into
mouse brains, the humanized mice learned faster. Interestingly, when Einstein's brain was examined
to find out what made him so awesomely creative, the only difference that could be found was that
he had many more astrocytes than the average human. Could astrocytes be the key to
understanding human intelligence? Well, the more we learn about the brain, the more may we have
to rethink learning.
I'm Terry Sejnowski. Happy learning, until we meet again.

P a g e | 51

Creating Meaningful Groups and the Memory Palace Technique

In this video, we're going to delve deeper into memory. Another key to memorization is to create
meaningful groups that simplify the material. Let's say you wanted to remember four plants that
help ward off vampires. Garlic, rose, hawthorn and mustard. The first letters abbreviate to GRHM,
so all you need to do to remember is use the image of a graham cracker.
It's much easier to remember numbers by associating them with memorable events. The year 1965
might be when one of your relatives was born for example. Or you can associate numbers with a
numerical system you're familiar with. For example, 11.0 seconds is a good running time for the 100
meter dash. Or 75 might be the number of stitches on a knitting needle for the ski hats you like to
make. Personally, I like to associate numbers with the feelings of, when was I was or will be at a
given age. The number 18 is an easy one. That's the age when I went out into the world. By age 104
I hope to be an old, but happy great grandma.
Many disciplines use memorable sentences to help students memorize concepts. The first letter of
each word in the sentence is also the first letter of each word in a list that needs to be memorized.
Medicine, for example, is laden with memorable mnemonics. Among the cleaner of which are:
Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can't Handle, to memorize the names of the carpal bones of
the hand. And Old People from Texas Eat Spiders, for the cranial bones. Time after time, these
kinds of memory tricks prove helpful. If you're memorizing something commonly used, see whether
someone has come up with a particularly memorable memory trick by searching it out online.
Otherwise, try coming up with your own.
The memory palace technique is a particularly powerful way of grouping things you want to
remember. It involves calling to mind a familiar place. Like the layout of your house, and using it as
a sort of a visual notepad where you can deposit the concept images that you want to remember. All
you have to do is call to mind the place you're familiar with. Your home, your route to school, or your
favorite restaurant and voila in the blink of an imaginative eye this becomes the memory palace that
you'll use as your notepad.
The memory palace technique is useful for remembering unrelated items, such as a grocery list.
Milk, bread, eggs. To use the technique, you might imagine a gigantic bottle of milk just inside your
front door. The bread plopped on the couch and a cracked egg dribbling off the edge of the coffee
table. In other words, you'd imagine yourself walking through a place you know well, coupled with
shockingly memorable images of what you want to remember. If you're studying Finance,
Sociology, Chemistry or what have you, and you have lists to remember, you could use this same
approach. The first time you do this, it will be slow. It takes a bit of time to conjure up a solid mental
image. But the more you do it, the quicker it becomes.
One study showed that a person using the Memory Palace technique could remember more than
95% of a 40 to 50 item list after only one or two practice mental walks, where the items were placed
on the grounds of the local university. In using the mind this way, memorization can become an
outstanding exercise in creativity that simultaneously build neural hooks for even more creativity.
Purists might sniff that using oddball memorization gimmicks isn't really learning. But researchers
show that students who use this kind of tricks outperform those who don't. In addition, imaging

P a g e | 52

research on how people become experts, shows that such memory tools speed up the acquisition of
both chunks and big picture templates. Helping transform novices to semi experts much more
quickly, even in a matter of weeks.
Memory tricks allow people to expand their working memory with easy access to long term memory.
What's more, the memory process itself becomes an exercise in creativity. The more you memorize
using these innovative techniques, the more creative you become. This is because you're building
these wild, unexpected possibilities for future connections early on. Even as you're first internalizing
the ideas, the more you practice this type of memory muscle so to speak, the more easily you'll be
able to remember. Where at first it may take 15 minutes to build an evocative image for an equation
and embed it say, in the kitchen sink of your memory palace, it can later take only minutes or
seconds to perform a similar task. You'll also realize that as you begin to internalize key aspects of
the material, taking a little time to commit the most important points to memory, you come to
understand it much more deeply. The formulas will mean far more to you, than they would if you
simply looked them up in a book. And you'll be able to sling those formulas around much more
proficiently on tests and in real world applications. You may say, well, you're just not that creative,
an equation or theory could hardly have its own grandiose motivations or persnickeity emotional
needs to help you understand and remember it. But always remember, your childlike creativity is
still there inside you. You just need to reach out to it.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn. [BLANK_AUDIO]

P a g e | 53

Summing Up Memory
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Learning to use your memory in a more disciplined yet creative manner helps you learn to focus your
attention, even as you create wild diffuse connections that build stronger memories. Here are the
key ideas about memory we've covered:

In this course, we discussed two main memory systems involved in your ability to chunk
concepts. The first is long term memory, which is like a storage warehouse. You need to
practice and repeat in order to help store items in long term memory so you can retrieve
them more easily. Practicing and repeating, all in one day, is a bad idea. You want to extend
your practice to several days. This is why tackling procrastination is important. It helps you
build better memories because you start earlier.

The second, is working memory, which is like a poor blackboard that quickly fades. You can
only hold about four items in your working memory. When you master a technique or
concept in some sense, it compacts the ideas so they can occupy less space in your working
memory when you do bring them to mind. This frees your mental thinking space so that it
can more easily grapple with other ideas.

We have outstanding visual and spatial memory systems. If you tap into those systems, it will
help improve your memory. To begin tapping into your visual memory system, try making a
very memorable visual image representing one key item you want to remember. Beyond
merely seeing, try to feel, to hear and even to smell something you're trying to remember.
The funnier and more evocative the image is, the better. As always, repetition over several
days is really helpful.

Another key to memorization is to create meaningful groups that simplify the material. Try
associating numbers with years or with systems you're familiar with like running times. Many
disciplines use memorable sentences. The memory palace technique, placing memorable
images in a scene that's familiar to you, allows you to dip into the strength of your visual
memory system, providing a particularly powerful way of grouping things you want to
remember. By making meaningful groups and abbreviations, you can simplify and chunk
what you're trying to learn so you can more easily store it in memory. And by memorizing
material you understand, you can internalize the material in a profound way. You're
reinforcing the mental library you need to become a genuine master of the material. Happy
memories!

I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn.

P a g e | 54

How to Become a Better Learner

Welcome back to Learning How to Learn. Today we're going to talk about how to become a better
learner. As we learn more about the brain we can become better learners, and here are two tips for
how to learn better.
Tip number one the best gift that you can give your brain is Physical Exercise. We once thought
that all of the neurons in your brain were already present at birth, but we now know that in a few
places, new neurons are born every day. One of these places is in your Hippocampus, a brain area
that is very important for learning new things that we already discussed earlier in the course. In this
experiment, a rat is shown, learning how to distinguish a picture of a flower from a picture of an
airplane. In the background is a photo of neurons in the hippocampus, with the old neurons shown in
blue and newly generated neurons in red. As the rat learns the task, these new neurons are recruited
to help perform better pattern separation between the two pictures. These new neurons help you
learn new things but they will die if you don't use them. New experiences will rescue them.
Exercise, interestingly, also helps new neurons survive. Exercise is by far, more effective than any
drug on the market today to help you learn better. It benefits all of your vital organisms, not just
your brain. It is unfortunate that schools are dropping gym and recess to make room for more
instruction. Gym and recess are by far the most important parts of the curriculum.
Here's another tip and this has to do with practice making perfect, but only when your brain is
prepared. There are certain critical periods in the development of your brain. When sudden
improvements occur in specific abilities, expect them to happen and prepare your brain for them.
The critical period for first language acquisition extends up to puberty. One of the best studied
critical periods in the brain is when binocular depth perception or stereopsis matures during the first
two years of life.
Stereopsis is the magic behind Magic Eye pictures like the one shown here. If you stare at this image
and slightly cross your eyes, you will see staircases pop out of the page. There is a slight shift
between the images in the two eyes and your brain interprets this slight shift as difference in depth.
Not everyone, however, can see this. Over 5% of the population is stereo blind. If the two eyes are
not properly aligned during the first two years of development, the neurons in your visual cortex will
fail to properly strengthen the inputs from the two eyes and depth perception is permanently
impaired. Well, that's the dogma. Sue Barry, a friend of mine from graduate school at Princeton,
was able to recover stereo vision through eye exercises, and wrote a book about it, entitled Fixing My
Gaze, a Scientist's Journey Into Seeing in Three Dimensions.
Practice can repair, as well as train the brain. But this takes much longer, past the critical period.
This brings us to zombies. Zombies can't learn. It is also clear from their behavior that they have
brain damage. Especially in the front of their cortex, which is the part that makes plans, as well as in
their language areas. Learning, planning, language, these are the skills that make us human. The
prefrontal cortex is also involved in complex analysis in social behaviors, as well as decision making
and planning. It is the last part of the cortex to mature, so until this happens, there may be a little bit
of zombie in you.

P a g e | 55

Another patient, EVR, suffered a stroke in the social parts of his prefrontal cortex. EVR had a high IQ
and seemed normal, but he was ruined by making bad financial decisions and bad social interactions.
He lost both his home and his family. Good judgment takes a long time, and a lot of experience to
acquire. Learning is too important to be left behind in the classroom. Learning to learn is a skill you
can master, and you can use it to improve every part of your life. You'll be learning even more
learning tips this week, and can follow up on them at http://www.brainfacts.org/.
I'm Terry Sejnowski, happy learning to you until we meet again.

P a g e | 56

Introduction to Renaissance Learning and Unlocking Your Potential

[BLANK_AUDIO]
This week we are going to wrap up a slew of important ideas, and techniques that will help round out
and enhance your ability to learn well, using metaphors and analogies, to work profitable with
teammates, and not undercut your own strengths, and finally to perform well on tests.
One important thought though, before we launch into this week's videos, learning doesn't progress
logically, so that each day just adds an additional neat package to your knowledge shelf. Sometimes
you hit a wall in constructing your understanding. Things that made sense before can suddenly seem
confusing. This type of knowledge collapse seems to occur when your mind is restructuring its
understanding, building a more solid foundation. In the case of language learners, they experience
occasional periods when the foreign language suddenly seems completely incomprehensible.
Remember it takes time to assimilate new knowledge. You'll inevitably go through some periods
when you seem to take and exasperating step backwards, in your understanding. This is a natural
phenomenon, that means that your mind is wrestling deeply with the material. You'll find that when
you emerge from these periods of temporary frustration, your knowledge base will take a surprising
leap forward.
I'm Barbara Oakley, thanks for learning how to learn.

P a g e | 57

Create a Lively Visual Metaphor of Analogy

[BLANK_AUDIO]
One of the best things you can do to not only remember, but understand concepts, is to create a
metaphor or analogy for them; often the more visual the better. A metaphor is just a way of
realizing that one thing is somehow similar to another. Simple ideas like one geography teacher's
description of Syria is shaped like a bowl of cereal, and Jordan as a Nike Air Jordan sneaker, can stick
with a student for decades. If you're trying to understand electrical current, it can help to visualize it
as water. Similarly, electrical voltage can feel like pressure. A push. As you climb to a more
sophisticated understanding of whatever topic you're concentrating on, you can revise your
metaphors or toss them away and create more meaningful ones.
Metaphors and visualization, being able to see something in your mind's eye, have been especially
helpful not only in art and literature, but also in allowing the scientific and engineering world to make
progress. In the 1800s for example, when chemists began to imagine and visualize the miniature
world of molecules, dramatic progress began to be made. Here's a fun illustration of monkeys in a
benzene ring from an insider spoof of German Academic Chemical Life printed in 1886. Note the
single bonds, or the monkeys' hands, and the double bonds with their tiny little tails.
It's often helpful to pretend that you are the concept you're trying to understand. Put yourself in an
electron's warm and fuzzy slippers as it burrows through a slab of copper. Or sneak inside the X of an
algebraic equation and feel what it's like to poke your head out of the rabbit hole. But just don't let it
get exploded by an inadvertent divide by zero. In chemistry, compare a Cation with a cat that has
paws and is therefore pawsitive. And an Anion with an onion that's negative, because it makes you
cry. Metaphors are never perfect, but then in science, all models are just metaphors which means
they break down at some point. But never mind that.
Metaphors and models are often vitally important in giving a physical understanding of the central
idea behind the process or concept you are trying to understand. Interestingly, metaphors and
analogies are useful for getting people out of Einstellung, that is, being blocked by thinking about a
problem in the wrong way. For example, telling a simple story of soldiers attacking a fortress from
many different directions at once can open creative paths for students to see how many lowintensity rays can be effectively used to destroy a cancerous tumor. Stories, even if they're just used
as silly memory tricks, can also allow you to more easily retain what you're trying to learn.
Metaphors also help glue an idea into your mind because they make a connection to neural
structures that are already there. It's like being able to trace a pattern with tracing paper.
Metaphors at least help you get a sense of what's going on.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn. [BLANK_AUDIO]

P a g e | 58

No Need for Genius Envy

[BLANK_AUDIO]
This is a good place for us to step back and look again at chunking from another perspective. Notice
what we're doing here. We're interleaving our learning by jumping back to revisit and deepen our
understanding of a topic we've already covered.
There's an interesting connection between learning math and science and learning a sport. In
baseball, for example, you don't learn how to hit in one day. Instead, your body perfects your swing
from lots and lots of repetition over a period of years. Smooth repetition creates muscle memory, so
your body knows what to do from a single thought, one chunk, instead of having to recall all the
complex steps involved in hitting a ball. In the same way, once you understand why you do
something in math and science, you don't have to keep re-explaining the how to yourself every time
you do it. It's not necessary to go around with a hundred beans in your pocket and to lay out ten
rows of ten beans again and again so you get that ten times ten is equal to 100. At some point you
just know it from memory.
For example you memorize the idea that you simply add exponents, those little superscript numbers,
when you are multiplying numbers that have the same base. Ten to the fourth times ten to the fifth
is equal to ten to the ninth. If you use the procedure a lot, by doing many different types of problems
you'll find that you understand both the why and the how behind the procedure far better than you
do after getting a conventional explanation from a teacher or a book. The greater understanding
results from the fact that your mind constructed the patterns of meaning, rather than simply
accepting what someone else has told you. Remember, people learn by trying to make sense out of
the information they perceive. They rarely learn anything complex simply by having someone else
tell it to them.
Chess masters, emergency room physicians, fighter pilots, and many other experts often have to
make complex decisions rapidly. They shut down their conscious system and instead rely on their
well-trained intuition, drawing on their deeply ingrained repertoire of chunks. At some point selfconsciously understanding why you do what you do, just slows you down and interrupts the flow
resulting in worse decisions. But wait, are chess masters and people who can multiply six digit
numbers in their heads exceptionally gifted? Not necessarily. I'm going to tell it to you straight.
Sure intelligence matters. Being smarter often equates to having a larger working memory. Your
hot rod of a memory may be able to hold nine things in mind instead of four and you can latch on to
those things like a bulldog, which makes it easier to learn. But guess what, it also makes it more
difficult for you to be creative. How's that? It's our old friend and enemy Einstellung.
The idea you are already holding in mind can block you from fresh thoughts. A superb working
memory can hold its thoughts so tightly that new thoughts can't easily peek through. Such tightly
controlled attention could use an occasional whiff of ADHD-like fresh air, the ability, in other words,
to have your attention shift even if you don't want it to shift. If you're one of those people who can't
hold a lot in mind at once, you lose focus and start daydreaming in lectures and have to get to some
place quiet to focus so you can use your working memory to its maximum, well welcome to the clan
of the creative. Having a somewhat smaller working memory means you can more easily generalize

P a g e | 59

your learning into new, more creative combinations. Because your working memory, which grows
from the focusing abilities of the prefrontal cortex doesn't lock everything up so tightly. You can
more easily get input from other parts of your brain. These other areas, which include the sensory
cortex, not only are more in tune with what's going on around you in the environment, but are also
the source of dreams, not to mention creative ideas. You may have to work harder sometimes or
even much of the time to understand what's going on. But once you get something chunked you can
take that chunk and turn it outside in and inside round, putting it through creative paces even you
didn't think you were capable of.
Here's another point to put into your mental chunker: it is practice, particularly deliberate practice on
the toughest aspects of the material that can help lift average brains into the realm of those with
more natural gifts. Just as you can practice lifting weights and get bigger muscles over time, you can
also practice certain mental patterns that deepen and enlarge in your mind. Whether youre
naturally gifted or you have to struggle to get a solid grasp of the fundamentals, you should realize
that you're not alone if you think you're an imposter. That it's a fluke when you happen to do well on
a test, and then on the next test, for sure they, and your family and friends, are finally going to figure
out how incompetent you really are. This feeling is so extraordinarily common that it even has a
name The Imposter Syndrome. If you suffer from these kinds of feelings of inadequacy just be aware
that many others secretly share them. Everyone has different gifts, as the old saying goes, when one
door closes, another opens. Keep your chin up and your eye on the open door.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn.

P a g e | 60

Change Your Thoughts Change Your Life

I love reading history and being inspired by the biographies of extraordinary people. One of the
most unusual people I've ever read about, is inspiring not only because he was so extraordinary, but
also, because he was so ordinary.
Santiago Ramn y Cajal was a born troublemaker. In rural Spain of the 1860s, there weren't many
options for oddball juvenile delinquents. So that's how at 11 years old, Cajal found himself in jail.
Cajal was stubborn and rebellious. Who knew that Santiago Ramn y Cajal would one day not only
earn the Nobel Prize, but eventually become known as the Father of Modern Neuroscience?
Cajal was already in his early 20s when he began climbing from bad boy delinquency into the
traditional study of medicine. There's evidence that myelin sheaths, the fatty insulation that helps
signals move more quickly along a neuron, don't finish developing in some people until they're in
their twenties. This may explain why teenagers often have trouble controlling their impulsive
behavior. The wiring between the intention and the control areas of the brain isn't completely
formed. When you use neural circuits however, it seems you help build the myelin sheath over them;
not to mention making many other microscopic changes.
Practice appears to strengthen and reinforce connections between different brain regions, creating
highways between the brain's control centers and the centers that store knowledge. In Cajal's case,
it seems his natural maturation processes coupled with his own efforts to develop his thinking,
helped him to take control of his overall behavior. It seems people can enhance the development of
their neuronal circuits by practicing thoughts that use those neurons. We're still in the infancy of
understanding neural development. One thing is becoming clear, we can make significant changes
in our brain by changing how we think.
Cajal met and worked with many brilliant scientists through his lifetime. People who were often far
smarter than he. In Cajal's autobiography however, he pointed out that although brilliant people can
do exceptional work, just like anyone else they can also be careless and biased. Cajal felt the key to
his own success was his perseverance. What he called the virtue of the less brilliant, coupled with his
flexible ability to change his mind and admit errors. Anyone, Cajal noted, even people with average
intelligence, can change their own brains so that even the least gifted can produce an abundant
harvest.
People like Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution has made him one of the most influential
figures in human history, are often thought of as these, sort of, natural geniuses. You may be
surprised to learn that much like Cajal, Darwin was a poor student in school. He washed out of
medical school and ended up, to his father's horror, heading out on a round the world voyage as the
ship's naturalist. Out on his own, Darwin was able to look with fresh eyes at the data he was
collecting. Approaching material with a goal of learning it on your own, can give you a unique path
to mastery. Often no matter how good your teacher and textbook are, it's only when you sneak off
and look at other books or videos that you begin to see what you learn through a single teacher, or
book, is a partial version of the full three dimensional reality of the subject, which has links to still
other fascinating topics that are of your choosing. Taking responsibility for your own learning is one
of the most important things you can do.

P a g e | 61

Santiago Ramn y Cajal had a deep understanding, not only of how to conduct science but also of
how people just interact with one another. He warned fellow learners that there will always be those
who criticize or attempt to undermine any effort or achievement you make. This happens to
everybody; not just Nobel Prize winners. If you do well in your studies, the people around you can
feel threatened. The greater your achievement, the more other people will sometimes attack and
demean your efforts. On the other hand, if you flunk a test, you also may encounter critics who
throw more barbs, saying you don't have what it takes.
We're often told that empathy is universally beneficial. But it's not. It's important to learn to switch
on an occasional cool dispassion that helps you to not only focus on what you're trying to learn, but
also to tune people out if you discover that their interests lie in undercutting you. Such undercutting
is all too common, as people are often just as competitive as they are cooperative. When you're a
young person, mastering such dispassion can be difficult. We're naturally excited about what we're
working on, and we like to believe that everyone can be reasoned with and then, almost everyone is
naturally good hearted towards us. Like Santiago Ramn y Cajal, you can take pride in aiming for
success. Because of the very things that make other people say you can't do it. Take pride in who
you are. Especially, in the qualities that make you different, and use them as a secret talisman for
success. Use your natural contrariness to defy the always present prejudices from others about what
you can accomplish.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning about learning.

P a g e | 62

The Value of Team Work

[BLANK_AUDIO]
This is a CT scan. If you look carefully, the shadowed region right here reveals the damage caused by
right hemisphere ischemic stroke. Such a stroke can cause an unusual condition known as broadperspective perceptual disorder of the right hemisphere. People with this disorder can still function,
but only partially. They can retain their intelligence, even a formidable way for solving complex
math problems, if that was a skill they'd had before. But an interesting anomaly, however, is if they
make a mistake in their calculations, concluding something nonsensical, such as that a hot dog stand
had a, a profit and loss statement with a loss of nearly a billion dollars. It doesn't bother them.
There's no big picture; click, that says, wait a minute; that answer does not make sense.
Although we need to be careful about faulty and superficial left brain, right brain assumptions. We
also don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water, and ignore worthwhile research that
gives intriguing hints about differences between the two hemispheres of the brain. There's a great
deal of evidence from research that the right hemisphere helps us step back and put our work into
big picture perspective. People with damage to the right hemisphere are often unable to gain ah-ha,
insights. The right hemisphere, as it turns out, is vitally important in getting into the right track and
doing reality checks. People with strokes can remind us of the dangers of not using our full cognitive
abilities, which involve many areas of our brain.
Even subtle avoidance of some of our capabilities can have a surprisingly negative impact on our
work. In some sense, when you whiz through a homework or test question and don't go back to
check your work, you're acting a little like a person who's refusing to use parts of your brain. You're
not stopping to take a mental breath. And then revisit what you've done with the bigger picture in
mind to see whether it makes sense. As leading neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran has
noted, the right hemisphere serves as a sort of devil's advocate to question the status quo and look
for global inconsistencies. While the left hemisphere instead tries to cling tenaciously to the way
things were. This echoes the pioneering work of psychologist Michael Gazzaniga who posited that
the left hemisphere interprets the world for us and will go to great lengths to keep those
interpretations unchanging.
When you work in the focus mode, it's easy to make minor mistakes in your assumptions or
calculations. If you go off track early on, it doesn't matter if the rest of your work is correct. Your
answer is still wrong. Sometimes, it's even laughably wrong. The equivalent of calculating a
circumference of the earth that's only two and a half feet around. But these non-sensical results just
don't matter to you because the more left centered focus mode has associated with it a desire to
cling to what you've done. That's the problem with the focus, sometimes a bit left hemisphere
leaning mode of analysis. It provides for an analytical and upbeat approach, but abundant research
evidence suggests there's a potential for rigidity, dogmatism, and egocentricity. When you're
absolutely certain that what you've done on a homework or test is fine, thank you very much, be
aware that this feeling may be based on overly confident perspectives arising in part from the left
hemisphere. When you step back and recheck, you're allowing for more interaction between the
hemispheres, taking advantage of the special perspectives and abilities of each. Nobel Prize winning

P a g e | 63

physicist Richard Feynman perhaps said it best when he pointed out, the first principle is that you
must not fool yourself. And you are the easiest person to fool.
One of the best ways to catch your blind spots and errors is to brainstorm and work with others who
are also smartly focused on the topic. It's sometimes just not enough to use more of your own neural
horsepower. Both modes and hemispheres to analyze your work. After all, everyone has blind
spots. You're naively upbeat focused mode can still skip right over errors, especially if you're the one
who committed the original errors. Worse yet, sometimes you can blindly believe you've got
everything nailed down intellectually, but you haven't. This is the kind of thing that can leave you in
shock when you discover you've flunked the test you thought you aced. By making it a point to do
some of your studying with friends, you can more easily catch where your thinking has gone astray.
Friends and teammates can serve as sort of ever questioning larger scale diffuse mode outside your
brain that can catch what you missed, or what you just can't see. And of course, explaining to friends
helps build your own understanding.
The importance of working with others doesn't just relate to learning. It's also important in career
building. A single small tip from a teammate to take a course from the outstanding Professor
Passionate, or to check out a new job opening, can make an extraordinary difference in how your life
unfolds. A word of warning, however; study groups can be powerfully effective for learning, but if
study sessions turn into socializing occasions, all bets are off. Keep small talk to a minimum, get
your group on track. And finish your work. If you find that your group meetings start five to 15
minutes late, members haven't read the material, and the conversation consistently veers off topic,
you're best off to find another group.
I'm Barbra Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn.

P a g e | 64

A Test Checklist
[BLANK_AUDIO]
We've mentioned it earlier, but it's worth repeating. Testing is itself an extraordinarily powerful
learning experience. This means that the effort you put into test-taking, including the preliminary
mini test of your recall and your ability to problem solve during your preparation is of fundamental
importance. If you compare how much you learn by spending one hour studying, versus one hour
taking a test on that same material, you'll retain and learn far more as a result of the hour you spent
taking a test. Testing, it seems, has a wonderful way of concentrating the mind. Virtually everything
we've talked about in this course has been designed to help make the testing process seem
straightforward and natural, simply an extension of the normal procedures you use to learn the
material. So it's time now to cut directly to one of the final features of this course: a checklist you
can use to see whether your preparation for test taking is on target. This checklist was developed by
legendary educator Richard Felder. Although, it was originally developed for engineers, it's actually
suitable for many disciplines. As Doctor Felder says the answer to the question, how should I
prepare for the test? is do whatever it takes to be able to answer, yes. Meaning, usually to most of
the questions on this list:

Did you make a serious effort to understand the text? Just hunting for relevant worked-out
examples doesn't count.

Did you work with classmates on homework problems or at least check your solutions with
others?

Did you attempt to outline every homework problem solution before working with
classmates?

Did you participate actively in homework group discussions contributing ideas and asking
questions?

Did you consult with the instructor or teaching assistants when you were having trouble with
something?

Did you understand all your homework problem solutions when they were handed in?

Did you ask in class for explanations of homework problem solutions that weren't clear to
you?

If you had a study guide, did you carefully go through it before the test and convince yourself
you could do everything on it?

Did you attempt to outline lots of problem solutions quickly without spending time on the
Algebra in calculations?

Did you go over the study guide and problems with class mates and quiz one another?

P a g e | 65

If there was a review session before the test, did you attended and asked questions about
anything you weren't sure about?

And lastly, did you get a reasonable night's sleep before the test? If your answer is no, your
answers to all the preceding questions may not matter.

Taking a test is serious business. Just as fighter pilots and doctors go through checklists before
takeoff and surgery, going through your own test preparation checklist can vastly improve your
chances of success. The answer to the question How should I prepare for the test? becomes clear
once you've filled our Doctor Felder's checklist.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning How to Learn.

P a g e | 66

Hard Start Jump to Easy

Now that you've gotten some insight into how your brain works, we can give you some final useful
tricks that can empower your test taking. The classic way students are taught to approach tests is to
tackle the easiest problems first. This is based on the idea that by the time you finish the relatively
simple problems, you'll be confident in handling the more difficult. This approach works for some
people, mostly because, well, anything works for some people. Unfortunately, however, for many
people it's counterproductive. Tough problems often need lots of time, meaning you'd want to start
on them first thing on the test. Difficult problems can also scream for the creative powers of the
diffuse mode. But to access the diffuse mode, you need to not be focusing on what you so badly
want to solve. What to do? Easy problems first, or hard?
The answer is to start with the hard problems but quickly jump to the easy ones. Here's what I mean.
When the test is first handed out to you, first take a quick look to get a sense of what it involves. You
should do this in any case. Then, when you start working the problems, start first with what appears
to be the hardest problem. But steel yourself to pull away within the first minute or two, if you get
stuck or you get a sense that you might not be on the right track. This does something exceptionally
helpful. Starting hard loads the first most difficult problem in mind and then switches attention
away from it. Both these activities are what allow the diffuse mode to begin its work. If your initial
work on the first hard problem has unsettled you, turn next to an easy problem, and complete or do
as much as you can. Then move, next, to another difficult looking problem and try to make a bit of
progress. Again, change to something easier as soon as you feel yourself getting bogged down or
stuck.
When you return to the more difficult problems, you'll often be pleased that the next step or steps in
the problem will seem to be more obvious to you. You may not be able to get all the way to the end
immediately, but at least you can get further before you switch to something else of which you can
make progress. In some sense, with this approach to test taking, you're being a little like an efficient
chef. While you're waiting for a steak to fry, you can swiftly slice the tomato garnish and turn to
season the soup and then stir the sizzling onions. The hard start jump to easy technique may make
more efficient use of your brain by allowing different parts of the brain to work simultaneously on
different thoughts.
Using the hard start jump to easy technique on tests guarantees that you will have at least a little
work done on every problem. It's also a valuable technique for helping you avoid Einstellung, getting
stuck on the wrong approach - because you have a chance to look at the problem from differing
perspectives. All of this is particularly important if your instructor gives you partial credit. The only
trick with this approach is that you must have the self-discipline to pull yourself off a problem once
you find yourself stuck for a minute or two. For most students it's easy, for others it takes discipline
and willpower. This may be why test takers sometimes find that the solution pops to mind right as
they walk out the door; when they give up, their attention switched, allowing the diffuse mode the
tiny bit of traction it needed to go to work and return the solution. Too late of course.
Sometimes, people are concerned that starting a problem and then pulling away from it might cause
confusion on an examination. This doesn't seem to be a problem for most people. After all, chefs
learn to bring various facets of a dinner together. But if you still have worries about whether this

P a g e | 67

strategy might work for you, try it first on homework problems. Also keep in mind that if you haven't
prepared well for a test, then all bets are off. Just take what simple points you can.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn. [BLANK_AUDIO]

P a g e | 68

Final Helpful Hints for Tests

[BLANK_AUDIO]
If you're a stressed out test taker, keep in mind that the body puts out chemicals such as cortisol
when it's under stress. This can cause sweaty palms, a racing heart, a knot on the pit of your
stomach. But interestingly, research finds, it's how you interpret these symptoms. The story you tell
yourself about why you're stressed makes all the difference. If you shift your thinking from, this test
has made me afraid, to this test has got me excited to do my best. It can really improve your
performance.
Another good tip for panicky test takers is to momentarily turn your attention to your breathing.
Relax your stomach, place your hand on it, and slowly draw a deep breath. Your hand should move
out, even as your whole chest is expanding outward like a barrel. By doing this type of deep
breathing, you're counteracting the fight or flight response that fuels anxiety. This calms you down.
But don't just start this breathing on the day of the test. If you practice this breathing technique in
the weeks before, just a minute or two here or there is all it takes. You'll slide more easily into the
breathing pattern during the test. Remember, practice makes permanent. It's especially helpful
deliberately moving to a deep breathing pattern in those final anxious moments before a test is
handed out.
I've gotten great tips on test taking from top professors from around the world. And here are some
of the best. Susan Sajna-Hebert, a professor of psychology at Lakehead University, advises her
students to cover up the answers to multiple choice questions and to try to recall the information.
So they can answer the question on their own first. If her students might complain that the practice
test was way easier than the real one, she asks, what makes the two situations different? When you
took the practice test, were you at home relaxing with toons on? Taking it with a fellow student? No
time limit? Did you have the answer key and class materials at hand? These circumstances are not
exactly like a crowded classroom with a clock ticking away and no way to access the answers.
Tracy Magrann, a professor of biological sciences at Saddleback College, tells her students to face
your fears. Often, your worst fear is not to get the grade you need for your chosen career. How can
you handle this? Simple. Have a Plan B for the alternative career. Once you have a plan for the
worst possible contingency, you'll be surprised that the fear will begin to subside. Professor
Magrann notes, study hard up until the day of the test and then let it go. Tell yourself, oh well, let
me just see how many questions I can get right. I can always pursue my other career choice. That
helps release stress, so you can actually do better and get closer to your first career choice. And Bob
Bradshaw, a professor of math at Ohlone College, tells his students about good worry and bad
worry. Good worry helps provide motivation and focus, while bad worry simply wastes energy.
Here are a few final thoughts. The day before a test, or tests, have a quick, final look over the
materials to brush up on them. You'll need both your focus mode and diffuse mode muscles, so to
speak, the next day. So you don't want to push your brain too hard. You wouldn't run a ten mile race
the day before running a marathon. Don't feel guilty if you can't seem to get yourself to work too
hard the day before a big examination. If you prepared properly, this seems to be a natural reaction,
almost as if you're subconsciously pulling back to conserve mental energy. While taking a test, you

P a g e | 69

should also remember how your mind can trick you into thinking that what you've done is correct,
even if it isn't. This means whenever possible, you should blink, shift your attention, and then double
check your answers using a, a big picture prospective asking yourself, does this really makes sense.
There's often more than one way to answer a question and checking your answers from different
perspectives provides a golden opportunity for verifying what you've done. If there's no other way to
check, except to step back through your logic, keep in mind that simple issues have tripped up even
the most advanced students. Just do your best. In science classes, having your units of
measurement match on each side of the equation can provide an important clue about whether
what you've done is correct. The order in which you work tests is also important. Students generally
work tests from front to back. When you're checking your work if you start more towards the back
and work towards the front, it sometimes seems to give your brain a fresher perspective that can
allow you to more easily catch errors. Nothing's ever certain. Occasionally you can study hard and
the test gods simply don't cooperate, but if you prepare well by practicing and building a strong
mental library, and you approach test taking wisely, you'll find that luck will increasingly be on your
side.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn.

P a g e | 70

Summary Week 4
This week, we've done a wide sweep through some of the deepest aspects of learning.

Metaphors and analogies aren't just for art and literature. One of the best things you can do
to not only remember, but more easily understand concepts in many different fields, is to
create a metaphor or analogy for them. Often, the more visual, the better.

We've learned from Nobel Prize winner Santiago Ramn y Cajal that if you change your
thoughts, you can really, truly change your life. It seems people can enhance the
development of their neuronal circuits by practicing thoughts that use those neurons. Like
Santiago Ramn y Cajal, you can take pride in aiming for success because of the very things
that make other people say you can't do it.

Keep in mind that when you whiz through a homework or test question and you don't go
back to check your work, you're acting a little like a person who is refusing to use parts of your
brain. You're not stopping to take a mental breath and then revisit what you've done with the
bigger picture in mind, to see whether it makes sense.

Overconfidence in your results can result from using only one mode of thinking. By making it
a point to do some of your studying with friends, you can more easily catch where your
thinking has gone astray.

Taking a test is serious business, just as fighter pilots and doctors go through checklists
before takeoff and surgery, going through your own test preparation checklist can vastly
improve your chances of success.

Counterintuitive strategies such as the hard start jump to easy technique, can give your brain
a chance to reflect on harder challenges even as you're focusing on other more
straightforward problems.

Here are some last test taking pointers:

The body puts out chemicals when it's under stress. How you interpret your body's reaction
to those chemicals makes all the difference. If you shift your thinking from, this test has
made me afraid, to this test has got me excited to do my best, it helps improve your
performance.

If you're panicked on a test, momentarily turn your attention to your breathing. Relax your
stomach, place your hand on it, and slowly draw a deep breath. Your hand should move
outward and your whole chest should expand like a barrel.

Your mind can trick you into thinking that what you've done is correct even if it isn't. This
means that whenever possible you should blink, shift your attention, and then double check
your answers using a big picture perspective, asking yourself, does this really make sense?

P a g e | 71

And finally, remember that not getting enough sleep the night before a test can negate any
other preparation you've done.

I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning about learning.

P a g e | 72

Wrap Up to the Course by Terrence Sejnowski and Barbara Oakley

Dr. Sejnowski: Welcome to the last video of Learning How to Learn. If you're still listening to us,
then you've come all the way through the course. And may remember at the beginning, I said that
brains do not come with an instruction manual. So we have to write one ourselves. And that was
one of our goals. In this final video, we want to tell you how much we've enjoyed teaching and
learning. We've learned from you as we hoped you've learned from us. The truth is you've always
been in the driver's seat when it comes to your own learning. But now that you have a better feeling
for what's under your neural hood, you can use this to help you learn new things all during your
lifetime.
Dr. Oakley: What we're hoping is that as the days and months will pass you'll continue to bring to
mind some of the key ideas you've learned in the course. Approaches such as switching your mode
of thinking from focused to diffuse can help reduce your frustration and allow for more creative
problem solving. Strengthening your chunking can give you a firmer grasp of the material. Even
seemingly tiny changes in your daily approach to your work. Using the pomodoro technique, for
example, can make a dramatic long-term difference in your learning and in your ultimate success.
Dr. Sejnowski: Learning is so vitally important to our future that most of us spend 12 to 16 of our
earliest years of our lives in school, culminating in high school or college. But the focus in formal
education is on the product of learning, not the process of learning. In this course, we've tried to give
you a better sense of the learning process. Although this is our last video, we hope it's not our last
chance to influence you. You have not truly learned something unless you can teach it to others.
Teach those ideas to others and you will find that they will continue to resonate and deepen in your
own mind.
Dr. Oakley: We hope you'll also have discovered how powerful these ideas can be at helping you
broaden your interest, passion, and expertise. Many people believe that what they're initially, sort
of, naturally good at is what they're supposed to be doing in life. But I myself am living proof that
passions can broaden, change, and grow. The world is evolving and a broad tool kit that allows you
to learn effectively in many different subject areas is one of the most powerful assets you can have.
Dr. Sejnowski: Best of luck in your life of learning.
Dr. Oakley: Ditto that.